After the Storm
by ShinyCDiver
Summary: With the onset of a devastating storm, the parents must put their children into bunkers for their protection. The children stay there for eleven years before emerging in a world that has wiped out almost all traces of human life. Now Honoka leads the Tokyo bunker as they try to survive the world that has turned against them. Will feature Aqours in future chapters. On Hiatus
1. Chapter 1

**I actually got the idea for this story a year ago while in an Environmental Science class. My teacher made a passing comment on the possibility of a global storm powerful enough to wipe out all traces of humanity and I jumped on the idea, thinking of ways to adapt it to the Love Live world. The result was this plot, but I wasn't satisfied with the way I wrote it back then and so the idea was put on the shelf.**

 **Now it has resurfaced, and this is the story of how nine girls (and several others) survive and interact with other survivors during the aftermath of such a global storm. I hope you enjoy.**

 **Disclaimer: I don't own Love Live. Or Love Live Sunshine. (Because Aqours will play a role in this story too. Just not very soon.)**

 **Warning: There are lots of transitions between character to character, so please keep this in mind. I tried to keep it from being to confusing, but I'm not sure how well I did.**

* * *

"Hurry, Maki-chan! Come here!" The four year old girl stumbled down the steps, one hand on the handrail and the other clutching the paw of a dearly loved teddy bear. Half-asleep and scared, the child made her way to her frantic mother.

"Mama, up!" She begged, and her mother scooped her up immediately. Now that Maki was awake and secure in her grasp, her mother started to move through the mansion the Nishikinos called home. "Where's Papa?" When her mother didn't give her an answer, Maki peered around the mansion as they passed room after room. She caught a glimpse of their lounge TV, which showed a newscaster in front of a live video feed of the ocean raging beneath a large storm cloud. She stuck her thumb in her mouth, not understanding why her mother was in such a panic.

"Papa's at the hospital!" She understood that 'hospital' meant where both her mother and father worked. There was no problem then, at least to her. She hugged her teddy bear and stared around curiously as her mother carried her out of the mansion and into the streets of Tokyo.

" _Warning! Severe storm incoming! All children must be brought to their respective bunkers at once! Repeat, severe storm incoming! All children must be brought to their respective bunkers at once!"_

The same message was playing from their TV over and over again, Honoka realized. She was tired of seeing the ocean behind an old man she didn't know and wished she could take the remote from her father. Her younger sister wasn't as bored of the message yet, as she sucked on a small cup. But Honoka was, and neither of her parents were in the same room as them anymore. She climbed onto the couch where her father had previously been sitting. "Ah! He took the control with him!" She cried with dismay.

"What's that?" Her sister asked. Only three years old, Yukiho was not as well-versed in the world as she was.

"The thing that changes the TV shows! It's not here! But daddy always said to leave it in here no matter what!" Honoka grumbled, upset that her father had broke the very rule he had dictated.

"Honoka! Yukiho! We're going on a trip!" Her mood shifted quickly. Trips were always fun, except when they ended up at the doctor's office for a shot. Even then, though, her mother always bought them little treats to take their minds off the pain.

"Yukiho, it's a trip!" Honoka said cheerfully to her sister, hopping off the couch. The problem with the TV was pushed out of her mind as she ran hand-in-hand with Yukiho to where their parents were waiting. "Where we going, mom?!"

"A fun place with lots of girls your age." Her mother said, smiling. Honoka briefly wondered why her mother's smile didn't look the same as it normally did, but she didn't let it worry her.

"Like Umi-chan and Kotori-chan? Are they going to be there too?" She asked, getting more excited for their trip.

"Yes, they should be. Come on, girls, let's go." To her surprise, Honoka was picked up by her father. Her mother carried Yukiho and the two adults hurried out into the street, passing other parents who were either carrying their children or holding their hands.

" _-dren must be brought to their respective bunkers at once!"_ Kotori's mother burst into the room where the two children were playing, startling both of them. Umi had come over to Kotori's for a play date, and her own home wasn't appropriate for two five year olds to play in, considering it was a dojo. "Umi-chan, your mom is here to pick you up."

"Huh? O-Okay...I have to go, Kotori-chan." Umi stood up, walking over to the door where Kotori's mother was waiting.

"But I was supposed to play with Umi-chan until five! It's only two!" Kotori complained, also getting up and going to her mother. Pouting, she grabbed her mother's skirt. "I wanna play with Umi-chan more!"

"You can play with Umi-chan more later. Here, Kotori, we have to go somewhere too." Still upset, Kotori allowed her mother to pick her up. Umi held onto Kotori's mother's hand until she reached the front entranceway and ran into her own mother's arms. "You got the message too?"

"And ran here as soon as I could. Good thing we live so close together. Now, Umi-chan, Kotori-chan, don't be upset." Umi's mother smiled. "The both of us are just taking you to a place where you can play without worry."

"A new place?!" Kotori asked, her eyes lighting up. "Where?!"

"Um...will Honoka-chan also be there?" Umi asked. "She couldn't come today…"

"It's a secret." Kotori's mother said, answering her daughter's question. "And yes, I think Honoka-chan will be there. All three of you can play together."

"Yes!" Kotori cheered, once again happy. It wasn't in her nature to be upset for long anyway. "Let's go, mama!"

" _Severe storm incoming! All children must be-"_ The TV was turned off, much to the disappointment of Rin, who was particularly intrigued by the raging ocean. Hanayo, on the other hand, was relieved that the swirling waves were no longer in view. "Rin-chan, Hanayo, I think it's time we took a little trip outside the house." Hanayo's mother said, taking both four year olds by their hands. "Stay close to me, both of you."

"Does my mama know we're going?" Rin asked, following obediently.

"Yes, I'm sure she'll meet us at the place we're going." Outside the house, the wind threatened to blow away both girls' jackets. The tops of the trees swayed, casting shadows over the mother and the two children as they hurried down the sidewalk.

"Mama, I'm scared…" Hanayo whimpered, huddling as close to her mother as she could without tripping her up.

"I didn't think it would be so soon…" Her mother muttered. In the intervals when they walked, Rin made funny faces at Hanayo, trying to cheer her childhood friend up.

"Papa, where are we going?" Nico asked, sprinting to keep up with her father's long strides. "Why isn't mama coming with us?" She was beginning to regret refusing her father's offer to carry her. But she was already six years old, not a little child that needed coddling.

"You'll see when you get there." That was his answer to her question every single time she asked where they were going, whether it be on a car trip or on a walk like they were on now. Her second question was ignored. She was worried about her mother, who had grown very big in the last couple months. She had been told she would be getting a little sister, and even had the chance to contribute a name. Her sister was going to be called 'Kokoro', a fitting name, if she thought so herself. Her father was going down the stairs to what she assumed to be the subway. She had never been down there herself, but she knew that subways ran below cities.

"Does Tokyo even have subways?" She asked aloud, but her question left her mind as soon as it had come. She had to hurry to catch up to her father.

"Why? Why did it have to come while we were visiting Japan?!" Eri looked up at her mother in shock, not knowing what had brought on the outburst. She was holding onto the bottom of her mother's jacket; both of her mother's arms were occupied by Arisa, her little sister.

"Mother?" The seven year old asked, confused and scared. The city was unfamiliar to her, as was the white hallway they were hurrying down. "Why are we running? What from?" Looking ahead, she spotted a closed door, with something that looked like a computer next to the doorframe.

"If only we were in Russia...we would have some more time…" Her mother muttered. "Eri, let go for a bit." Eri reluctantly loosened her hold on her mother's jacket. As she watched, her mother lifted Arisa to the computer monitor. "Arisa, be a good girl and keep your eyes open right now."

 _Iris accepted. Ayase Arisa, three years old. Birthdate not registered._ The machine printed out a small plastic card, which their mother took. "Eri, hold onto this." Eri accepted the card wordlessly. Arisa was placed on the floor and Eri was lifted into the air in front of the computer. "Look into the camera." She found it and kept her eyes wide open, not needing instructions after watching Arisa do it. _Iris accepted. Ayase Eri, six years old. Birthday: October 21._ The card was printed out and Eri was handed her card as well.

The white doors slid apart, revealing a large round room with white walls. The girls already inside looked up hopefully at the door, as if they were expecting someone. Eri grabbed her mother's hands, not wanting to go in if this was their destination. "Mother, let's go home." She begged.

"We can't. You can't." Her mother said, kneeling down to the height of her daughters. "You must take your sister and stay in here."

"You'll come too?" To her distress, her mother shook her head. "Why not?! Don't you love us?!"

"You're too young to understand right now, Eri. I love you both, but I cannot come with you into there. If I'm lucky, we'll see each other again."

"And if you're not?" Eri asked, barely holding herself back from crying. She had to be strong, because if she cried, Arisa would cry too. "If you're not lucky, what happens?"

"...you'll know. If I'm not lucky, you'll know when the time comes." Nothing her mother was saying made her want to go into the room. "Eri, I trust you to do the right thing. Keep your card and Arisa's card until she is old enough to hold it herself. Go." Her mother gave her a light push into the room. The door had slid shut by the time she turned around to take a last look at her mother. Her good-bye died on her lips.

Nozomi hummed as she followed her mother tirelessly through the city. She wasn't scared, convinced it was another game to distract her while her father prepared for their next trip to a new home. They had always done this, believing she wouldn't recognize when they were about to move without warning. But a game had never gone on for so long, nor had the game ever led to places she wouldn't recognize. A long hallway that was reached only through going down several flights of stairs classified as a place she did not recognize.

And at the end of the hallway was an open door, with a mother trying without success to calm her crying child. Nozomi's mother quickened her pace, and Nozomi did as well, feeling the first bit of fear enter her heart.

"May I?" Her mother asked the other parent. Nodding, the other mother took her child aside to make room for Nozomi and her mother. "Nozomi, come here." She took being carried with no complaint, even though it had been a long time since she was lifted into the air by her parents. Still not understanding, even when the card had printed out and it was given to her, Nozomi found that she didn't want to go into a room filled with strangers alone.

"I don't want to." She whispered, backing up from the doorway, empathizing with the crying child near her. "I don't want to go there!" She cried, hugging her mother's legs. "Don't make me go in there!" With difficulty, her mother peeled her arms away.

"You have to." Her mother said sternly.

"Having trouble too?" The other parent asked sympathetically. "I've been here twenty minutes and my little Maki-chan doesn't want to go. I don't have the heart to force her in, even if it is for her own good."

"If only it hadn't come so quickly, my husband and I were going to move soon. We would have been able to have more time with Nozomi then." Her mother's eyes lit up, as if she had just gotten an idea. "Hey, why don't we send both of them in together?"

"That's a good idea. Maki-chan, look. This is Nozomi onee-chan." The red haired child whimpered but she turned to look.

"Nozomi...onee-chan?" Maki repeated, her eyes still filled with tears.

"Nozomi, I know we just met, but could you take care of my daughter for me?" Nozomi wanted to shake her head and say no but her heart wouldn't let her just abandon another girl. She understood what it felt like to be alone. She nodded, though she still hated the idea of going into the room without her mother. "Thank you. Now, Maki-chan, go with your onee-chan."

The little girl looked at her mother, then tottered over to Nozomi and slipped her small and sticky hand into Nozomi's own. Nozomi looked at her mother, who smiled encouragingly. So now she was a big sister, even if the decision was sudden. And though she had no explanation for why she and Maki must enter the room, they had to. She gripped her newly adopted sister and walked through the door.

"There's so many people!" Honoka cried cheerfully. She and her sister had been among the first few girls to arrive at the bunker, which was what her mother had called the room, and now it was nearly full. She had Yukiho's card as well as her own, which they needed to keep with them at all times. "Look, Umi-chan, Kotori-chan!" Her mother hadn't lied to her. Both of her friends were there with her.

"Y-Yeah…" Umi wasn't looking. She was more content just hiding behind Kotori's back.

"We'll make plenty of friends here until our mothers come to pick us up." Kotori commented, looking around. "Hey, that girl has a sister around Yukiho-chan's age! Let's go talk to her!"

"Where?!" Honoka followed Kotori's finger to a blonde girl who looked older than them. "Okay, Kotori-chan!"

"Wait for me!" Umi ran after her more energetic friends-even Yukiho was more at ease than she was-to where the blonde was standing.

"Hi!" Eri jumped, startled by the cheerful voice that seemed so out of place in the quiet sadness that pervaded the large room. "I'm Kousaka Honoka, what's your name?!"

"Ayase-"

"And can my sister play with your little sister?!" The two younger girls were already greeting each other in their own way, so it wasn't like Eri had much choice in the matter. "Great! Thanks!...what was your name again?"

"You didn't let her say anything, Honoka-chan." Honoka laughed sheepishly. The girl who chided her turned to Eri. "I'm Minami Kotori, and the girl behind me is Sonoda Umi-chan." Umi waved shyly but refused to say anything.

"Sorry about that! I get excited and then I just forget to let the other person speak!" Honoka said, a bright and happy smile on her face even as she was apologizing.

"No, it's fine." Eri said, giggling a bit. "I'm Ayase Eri. My little sister is Arisa."

"Eri-chan, huh? It's a pretty name! Let's go play together!" Maybe it would be more fun if she wasn't only thinking about how they were stuck in the room.

"Okay!"

"Ah, Kayo-chin, I wanna play with them!" Rin cried, tugging at her friend's arm. She had spotted four other girls playing tag, even if they were a small number compared to the number of girls actually in the room. "Come on, nya!"

"I don't want to! I'll sit here until my mama comes back!" Hanayo was indeed sitting next to the doorway she and Rin had come in through. "Rin-chan can go play!"

"But it's not fun without Kayo-chin nya! Rin will sit here too then!" The girl proceeded to sit down, though she still watched the girls playing with interest. Hanayo knew that her friend wanted to go and join them, but she still didn't want to.

"Rin-chan, you can go play." Hanayo said, resting her head on her knees.

"If Kayo-chin doesn't go, then Rin won't go. I'll wait until Kayo-chin wants to play too!" Rin was too nice to her. She stood up shakily.

"Let's go play, Rin-chan." She said, even though she still wanted to sit until their mothers came back for them. She couldn't always be a burden to her friend.

"Really?! Yay!" Rin looped her arm through Hanayo's and ran towards where the girls were playing tag. "Can we join you?!"

"Yeah! The more playing, the more fun it is!" An older girl grinned. "I'm Honoka! Let's play together from now on!" And Hanayo had to admit that playing was a better way of passing the time than just sitting by the door, even if the playing field was around other girls just sitting around.

Kotori spotted a girl standing by herself. When their eyes met, the other girl looked away, as if she hadn't been looking at them. Since she was it anyway, Kotori trotted over to the other girl. "Tag, you're it!" She called cheerfully.

"Hang on, I'm not even playing!" The other girl complained, but Kotori was already skipping away.

"Look out! She's it!" Honoka warned the other players and any who were remotely close to the new girl immediately changed directions.

"Jeez…" The girl muttered, but her eyes gleamed with a determination to win the game. "Fine, I will catch you all!"

"You only need to tag one of us to change who's it!" Kotori shouted. She had retreated almost to the other side of the room. "Also, what's your name?!"

"Yazawa Nico! And by the end of this game, you'll all know not to cross me!" Nico declared, running after the closest player, who happened to be Eri. The black haired girl chased the other six year old around for a few seconds before switching targets. "Tag, you're it!" She said in triumph, having tagged an unsuspecting Umi. She trotted away, keeping her gaze locked on the new 'it'.

"Maki-chan, do you want to play with them?" The four year old had been staring with rapt attention at the seven girls playing tag for the past couple minutes. Nozomi would not have suggested joining them if she hadn't noticed that two of the players were around the same age as her adopted sister.

"Yup!" Maki voiced her agreement. "Can we, Nozomi onee-chan?" She couldn't exactly come up with an excuse why they shouldn't, so she nodded. Leading Maki by her hand, Nozomi approached one of the girls who wasn't being chased or 'it' at the moment.

"Can we join you?" She asked, gesturing to herself and Maki.

"Yeah!" The ginger responded enthusiastically. "I'm Honoka! What are your names?!"

"I'm Toujou Nozomi and she is…"

"Nishikino Maki!" Maki piped up, clearly eager to join the game.

"Wow! Maki-chan and Nozomi-chan are joining us!" Honoka shouted to the rest of the group, getting a few grunts of acknowledgement. "Maki-chan is smart too! I couldn't pronounce such a long name!" Maki looked proud of herself, but the prideful expression faded after a few seconds.

"Look out, Honoka-nee!" Honoka ducked instinctively in response to the warning and Eri made a 'tsk' as she missed her target.

"I'll leave you alone right now because you just joined, but I won't go easy next time!" The blonde ran off to chase after Nico.

"Hey, no tag-backs Eri!"

"No one else said that!"

"Well it's a rule now!" Eri grumbled as she was forced to change targets again. Nozomi let go of Maki and the child ran off, though in the opposite direction of where Eri was.

And that was how the nine girls found each other, deep below the city of Tokyo, while a storm of massive proportions unlike any recorded in history devastated the earth. Unbeknownst to them who are locked in their bunker, the world above was being decimated. It would be eleven years before any of them set foot on the surface again. All over the world, children like the nine were placed into bunkers, locked away in the earth to ensure humanity's survival once the storm had ceased.

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 **Would you prefer have the next chapter describe their living arrangements inside the bunker? Or should I jump straight to the time eleven years later when they get to leave the bunker?**

 **Leave your choice in a review! :D**


	2. Chapter 2

mabver321: Living arrangements it is! :D

Dessert Maniac: While I was writing the chapter, I didn't realize I was putting 'seven' instead of 'six' for Eri and Nico until near the end. I missed the number in Nico's portion of the narration, but it's been fixed now. Thanks for pointing it out! :D (Nico, Eri, and Nozomi are all six. Honoka, Kotori, and Umi are five. Maki, Rin, and Hanayo are four.)

 **A couple of chapters will be used to develop the bunker that the characters are living in. It's a bit more advanced than the technology we have. (I think...I'm not good with technology…)**

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 _All children designated for the Tokyo Bunker are accounted for and present._ Honoka, like all of her new friends, stopped in their tracks to look for the source of the echoing voice. She was still looking around curiously when one of the white walls turned into a screen, showing nothing but a flat line. _I will begin going over procedures for living within the bunker. Listen carefully._ Honoka realized with slight amusement that the line moved every time the voice said something. She turned to point it out to whoever was close to her-Kotori-but her friend silenced her before she could say anything. _All of you should have a card that you received when you first entered the bunker. Make sure you still have it._ Honoka reached into her pocket and pulled out two cards, one that belonged to her, the other she was holding onto for Yukiho. She nodded to herself and put them away again. _Keep those with you at all times. Losing your card is not an option, as they cannot be replaced. Now descend the steps._

The center of the room rose, revealing the top of a spiral staircase. Honoka looked at all of the other girls in their 'bunker'-that was what the strange voice called it, right?-noting that no one else was making a move towards the stairs. But the voice had told them to go down, and in the lack of any other instruction, Honoka was more inclined to obey. She took Yukiho's hand and started towards the opening made by the raised floor. She couldn't see the bottom from the top, but she wasn't scared. "Let's go everyone!" She called out cheerfully to her friends and started down the steps with her little sister.

"We're with you, Honoka-chan." Kotori's voice came from behind her right ear.

"Y-Yeah…" Umi sounded more scared, though the girl was following her regardless. It took a few minutes of descent through the darkened stairwell before Honoka emerged in a brightly lit room not unlike the one they had just left. Except it had several hallways running in different directions from the center room. She moved aside, careful to make sure Yukiho wasn't in the way either, to allow the rest of the girls to come down. Umi and Kotori huddled by her side.

Once all the girls were inside the room, the staircase retracted into the ceiling of the room. Clearly, they weren't going back up soon. The screen appeared on one of the walls again and Honoka turned towards it. _Each of you have been assigned a room within this bunker. You must share rooms. Some may have two people, some may have three. Your cards should tell you your room number. Numbers 1-7 are down the left hallway. Numbers 8-15 are down the right hallway. Check your cards now._ There was a rustling noise as all of the girls pulled out their cards.

"I'm in Room 2." Honoka said, reading her card. She looked at Yukiho's as well. "Ah, but Yukiho is in Room 5. How can I take care of her if she's not in the same room as me?"

"Arisa's also in Room 5. Maybe we'll take turns keeping an eye on both of them?" Eri suggested, looking at the two cards in her own hands. "I'm in Room 3 though."

"That's a good idea." Honoka admitted. "Hey, what about everyone else? Where are you at?"

"Room 1…" Hanayo said, showing her card to Honoka.

"Me too nya! Kayo-chin and I will be together!" Rin cheered, jumping up and down with joy.

"Me too…" Maki mumbled. "I'm in Room 1...I think." Rin took Maki's hands.

"We'll have lots of fun together nya! All three of us!"

"I'm in Room 3." Nozomi and Nico said at the same time. Nico glared; Nozomi stared back evenly.

"Wow, what are the chances of that? All our rooms are super close to each other!" Honoka said cheerfully. "Ah, the screen is saying something now. Better be quiet." With difficulty, she stopped herself from making more comments and looked to the screen again. _Within each room is a interface. It looks like this._ A picture of a machine was shown on the screen. _Each morning, you must put your arm into the interface._ A red arrow appeared on screen, pointing to a part of the machine. _It will print out a schedule on your arm. Follow that schedule. It will wash away during your shower. The showers are down the hallways next to the room hallways. All meals will be in the dining hall, down the hall opposite the screen. Head to your respective rooms now to receive your first schedule._ The wall went blank after the message was finished.

"Rooms 1-7 are down the left, right?" Honoka asked as she cheerfully led her little group through the crowd searching for their rooms.

"Yes, that's what the screen said." Eri confirmed from the back of the group. The eleven girls tromped down the hallway directly to the left of the screen, looking up at the signs above the doors to see what room they were supposed to go into. "Here's room 5." She opened the door, revealing a rather bare room with only two beds and another door. "Arisa, this is the room you are going to be sharing with Yukiho, okay?" Her little sister nodded. Eri looked around for the interface, finally spotting it right next to the door to the hallway. "I'll help you first, but every morning from now on you have to do this yourself." The interface arm module seemed to be in a lower position than the screen had indicated, but it would be fine for the two three year olds.

"Yukiho, you watch too." Honoka said, having entered the room with her own little sister. The rest of the girls waited outside, not wanting to crowd the space. Eri lifted Arisa's right arm and put it into the hole in the interface.

 _Scanning. Confirmed: Ayase Arisa. Printing schedule._ Arisa gasped as a stamp pressed down on her skin. When she pulled her arm back out, it now bore the activities she would have to do and the times she would have to do it at. "Now, Yukiho's turn." Eri gestured for the other toddler to come over. Once both of the girls had their schedules, they looked at their older sisters for explanation. "We'll be in different rooms, so you'll have to get the schedule in the morning by yourself. But if we'll tell you what your schedule says once we see each other. Understand?" The two girls nodded. Honoka knelt and took Yukiho's arm in her hand to see the schedule.

"All it says right now is to change outfits-probably through that other door-" Honoka pointed at the door across from the room entrance, "-and then there's nothing until dinner at seven. Shower's at eight."

"Look over there." Arisa and Yukiho looked in the direction Eri was pointing in. "Arisa, you can read a clock, right?" It was a simple wall clock, ticking the time away. Arisa nodded.

"I can tell time!" She said, looking rather proud of herself.

"That's cool! Even nee-chan can't do that yet!" Yukiho gasped.

"So when the big hand touches the seven, it's time for dinner. We'll come get you, so you don't have to worry." The two girls nodded solemnly. "We're going to our own rooms now, so go through the door and get changed." Eri closed the door to give the two girls privacy.

The nine girls split into three groups as they reached the furthest three rooms in the hallway. Honoka opened the door to the room she would be sharing with Umi and Kotori, wondering if it would be different from the room Yukiho and Arisa had. Unfortunately, it was largely the same, except that one of the beds was a bunk bed, to accommodate for three people instead of two. "I want the top bunk!" Honoka called out, climbing to the top of the ladder to look at her bed. She had begged her mother for a bunk bed before, saying that she would share a room with Yukiho to have one, but her mother had not agreed. Now she got one, and she would be sharing the room with her two most favorite people in the world.

"I'll take the bottom bunk then." Kotori said, knowing that Umi wouldn't like having a restless sleeper like Honoka above her during the night. "But we have to get the schedule first."

"Ah, right!" Honoka checked below her to make sure neither of her friends were there before hopping down from the top rung. She went into a somersault as soon as she landed, decreasing the amount of damage her legs would take. "I'll go first!" Sticking her hand into the arm module of their room interface, she waited for the stamp to come down with her schedule. _Scanning. Confirmed: Kousaka Honoka. Printing schedule._ The ink was still wet when she pulled her arm out of the module. Kotori went next, bravely putting her hand into the machine.

 _Scanning. Confirmed: Sonoda Umi. Printing schedule._ By the time Umi was getting her schedule, Honoka's had dried enough to be touched without leaving a trace on her fingers. She looked at it. "It's the same as the one Yukiho got. We hafta get changed. Who wants to go in first?"

"My schedule is still wet. I have to wait." Umi said, staring at her arm as if doing so would make the ink dry faster.

"I'll go." Kotori volunteered. She walked over to the other door and pulled it open. "No peeking. That means you, Umi-chan."

"Since when have I ever done something like that?!" Umi shouted, her face bright red. Kotori stuck her tongue out teasingly, then shut the door behind her. Honoka looked between the door and Umi, then gave herself a tour of the room.

"Hey, Umi-chan! Look, look!" Honoka had found a poster on one of the walls. "It says something, but I can't read it!" She could, but she was rather lazy and wanted Umi to read it for her. Her friend came to her side to peer at the poster.

"Um…'If you...have...any….' I don't know that word yet." Umi pointed to the word in question. Honoka studied it for a few seconds.

"'Questions'. That's 'questions', Umi-chan!"

"Uh-huh...so 'if you have any questions...ask the...in-inter...interface.' ...I think." Umi turned away from the poster to stare curiously at the machine next to their room door. "What else does it do besides print schedules?"

"Dunno. Let's ask it!" Honoka trotted over to the machine.

"What else do you do besides print out schedules?" Nozomi asked the machine. The three of them had also found the poster, but Nico hadn't been interested in it. So while the black-haired girl was in the changing room, Nozomi and Eri turned their attention to the interface. No response came from the machine.

"Maybe we have to press something. Like this button?" Eri suggested, pressing a button that had the silhouette of a microphone on it.

 _Ask your questions._ The machine intoned. Both girls were taken aback, but they soon recovered from the surprise.

"What do you do besides print out schedules?" Nozomi repeated her earlier question.

 _Classified._

"What does 'classified' mean?" Eri whispered to Nozomi. The purple-haired girl shrugged; she didn't know the word either. Raising her voice, Eri addressed her question to the interface.

 _Classified. Something confidential._ The girls were more confused now, with another word that neither of them knew to think about.

"Oi, one of you two can go now." Nico stepped out of the other door, now dressed in a gray jumpsuit. "Don't say anything about my clothes until we see what they change you into." Nozomi and Eri exchanged glances with each other. The blonde walked over to the door and passed through it, shutting the door behind her.

From the main room looking in, she had thought it was nothing but a dark room. But as soon as she entered and shut the door, the room pulsed with light. A green light roved over her body, from both the front and the back, and she got the feeling that it was passing right through her clothes and scanning her body. _Undress, Ayase Eri._ A voice said and Eri obeyed. Now she stood without any clothing in the space which had once again become dark. _These are your clothes from now on. You will receive clean ones only after a shower._ Eri fumbled in the dark, then realized she had been acting too early as the clothes the voice mentioned rose from the floor on a table. She pulled on the undergarments and the jumpsuit-gray, just like Nico's-and the boots that came with the outfit. _Send in the last individual in the room to get changed._ Eri opened the door back to the main room. Remembering her clothes, she turned to retrieve them. But the room was already empty; her clothes were gone. At least she still had her hair tie. She made a mental note to keep it with her at all times.

"Hey, a new poster arrived!" Rin shouted as soon as Maki emerged from the dark room. The red-head had been the last to get changed, while Hanayo and Rin chatted in their bedroom.

"It wasn't there before, right?" Hanayo looked at the other poster, the one with a picture of their interface that they had been unable to read even with the three of them looking at it together. "Can anyone read it?"

"It has a picture of the clothes we're wearing nya!" Rin pointed at the image, which had arrows pointing away from the outfit.

"I can't read it…" Maki was reuniting with her teddy bear. She was grateful for not bringing it into the dark room after her original clothes had been taken away from her. "Maybe we should ask one of the nee-chans to see if they know what it says later."

"That's a good idea nya!" Rin patted her new friend roughly on the back. "What should we do for now, nya?"

"Nothing shows up before dinner at seven." Maki looked at the clock. "The long thingy is on five."

"Kayo-chin's being quiet. What's wrong, Kayo-chin?" Rin hopped onto the bottom bunk next to her childhood friend.

"I was just thinking...what if our mamas don't come back for us?"

"My mama will come back for me!" Maki shouted, making Hanayo flinch. "I'm sure she's just getting papa from the hospital and then they'll come for me!" The amount of determination in the other child's voice managed to dispel Hanayo's worry though.

"Maki-chan's right nya! Kayo-chin's mama loves Kayo-chin and Rin's mama loves Rin! They'll come get us! We just have to wait here for now nya! Like a long sleepover nya!" Hanayo giggled, feeling better with both of her roommates cheering her up.

* * *

 **There are around 30~40 girls in the bunker.**

 **There's a very good reason why I put the first years in room 1, the second years in room 2, and the third years in room 3 but the little sisters in room 5. Room 4 is for another group that will make their first appearance in the next chapter. (I hope. It may not turn out that way after writing the chapter.)**

 **Thank you for all the support on the story so far! I'll do my best on this story! :D**


	3. Chapter 3

AshuraX: I can't really put out a Love Live story without mentioning some of the most important side characters, can I?

TsundereHeavyCruiser: I'll write one more chapter of life in the bunker from their current POV. After that, the time skips start. :D

Dessert Maniac: Not only Maki. Rin seems to believe that her mom and Hanayo's mom would come back for them too. The interfaces are impersonal on purpose. Their only purpose is to print schedules and answer basic questions. And yes, A-Rise is in Room 4. They make a short appearance in this chapter, but I hope to include them more in the future.

 **Why it took me three days to write this? Flow problem, mostly. And how to incorporate A-Rise. But it's been resolved now, and more of the bunker has been designed (in my mind, at least.)**

 **Not writing things down has its downsides.**

* * *

"Hey, it's almost seven now." Honoka said, by which she meant that the short hand seemed really close to the number seven on the clock face. Her position on the top bunk meant that the wall clock was directly across from her face, although she had a bit of trouble trying to make sense of the numbers while upside down. "Should we go get going?"

"I guess." Umi responded. The bluenette walked over to the bunk below Honoka and shook Kotori's shoulder. "Kotori-chan, wake up. We have to get dinner now."

"Mm….okay…" The other child rubbed her eyes and yawned as she sat up. There really wasn't anything that the three five year olds could do to pass the time, so Kotori had taken a nap while Umi attempted to keep Honoka company. "Are we going with everyone?"

"Oh yeah! We should go together as a group!" But before any of the three reached the exit of their room, there was a knock on their door.

"Oi~ You guys in Room Two!" The knocking noise continued even after the other person had called out. Umi, easily frightened, took to her normal hiding position of being behind Kotori. Honoka exchanged looks with Kotori but went to open the door. A group of three girls she hadn't met yet stood in the doorway.

"...who are you?" She asked. The girl closest to her glared at Honoka, startling her a bit.

"It's rude to ask a name without saying your own." Honoka blinked, confused, as the girl huffed in irritation.

"I-I'm sorry?" That didn't seem to be the right response either, as the other girl only got more angry for some reason. Honoka backed up a bit into her room as the other child started snapping at her.

"Why did you phrase it as a question?! Say it like you mean it!" Thankfully, Honoka didn't have to respond as one of the girl's companions stepped forward and gently slapped her on the back of the head. "Ouchi! Jeez, Erena, what was that for?!"

"Just get to the point, Tsubasa." Tsubasa looked like she was going to argue with Erena, but the last girl of the trio tapped on Tsubasa's shoulder, getting the girl's attention.

"Tsu-chan...if you don't hurry up…" The girl's stomach growled. "...I'm going to get very angry…" Her light voice didn't match with the dark expression she bore on her face, and Honoka made a mental note to never get on that girl's bad side if possible. Tsubasa's own expression changed from one of irritation to one of fear, only reinforcing Honoka's impression that the last girl was not to be crossed. Tsubasa coughed awkwardly, turning back to Honoka and her friends.

"A-Anyway…you're Honoka, right?"

"E-Eh? Yeah, that's right…" Honoka frowned, unable to figure out how Tsubasa knew her name. As far as she remembered, she didn't say her name to the three in front of their room yet.

"Cool. Your sister's crying for you."

"What?"

"We stay in Room 4 and we heard crying next to us so we went to take a look." Erena explained, smacking Tsubasa once more for not making it clear even though the other girl had finally got to the reason why they were in front of Room 2. "Yukiho-san told us you were her sister after she calmed down, so we came to find you."

"Erena-chan, I'm hungry…" Anju pouted. To add to her statement, she draped her body over Tsubasa and went limp, forcing her friend to bear her weight.

"H-Heavy…" Tsubasa groaned, but she started down the hallway with Anju's weight on her back regardless.

"We're just passing the message. See you around." Erena followed after her two friends, watching with amusement at Tsubasa attempting to drag Anju more than a few steps. "Anju, you'll get to the food faster if you didn't rely on Tsubasa."

"Honoka, what now?" Umi asked, finally poking her head out from behind her protective shield now that the strangers were gone.

"I'll go check on Yukiho and Arisa-chan. Umi-chan, can you go tell Eri-chan? And Kotori-chan, can you get Maki-chan and the others? We'll meet up in front of Yukiho's room." Her friends nodded and they set out from their bedroom.

Kotori knocked on the door to Room 1, right next to their own, before turning the knob and pushing inwards. "AH! Don't come in!" She heard Rin call out in a startled voice. She didn't move, but stood in the doorway as the door continued to open soundlessly. The layout of their room was much like the one she shared with Umi and Honoka, not very big. Rin was sitting on the top bunk, Hanayo halfway up the ladder, and Maki sat on the other bed, hugging a small bear.

"Why can't I come in?" She asked as Hanayo reached the top of the ladder and Rin applauded her.

"The floor's lava nya! If you're not careful, you'll burn up nya!" So they were playing a game. Though it was close to dinner, and though Honoka wanted her to bring the three of them to Room 2, Kotori decided to let them finish their little game first. The goal seemed to be getting to the top bunk without touching the floor. "Maki-chan, come on!"

"It's not that hard, Maki-chan!" Hanayo shouted some encouragement too. Maki stood up on the single bed, her teddy bear still wrapped protectively under one arm. The redhead leapt across the gap between the single bed and the bottom bunk, turning herself mid-air so that her shoulder would bear the impact of hitting the bed. "Now up the ladder!"

"I know!" Maki readjusted her hold on her bear before climbing the ladder. She almost lost her hold on the structure because of the bear, but managed to get to the top bunk without falling off. "I did it!" The three four year olds sat on the top bunk, laughing and celebrating their success at getting across the lava floor.

"Now you three have to come down for dinner!" Kotori called, getting their attention at the thought of getting something to eat.

"Dinner!" Rin cried out. "But the floor's still lava nya…" She peered over the metal railing that the top bunk had at the floor below. It didn't seem like they wanted to end their game yet, but they also wanted to go eat something. Kotori thought, and came up with a solution.

"Whoosh!" She shouted, making a wave motion with her hands. "There! Now I covered the lava with water so it became rock!"

"Can we walk across the rock?" Hanayo asked, her eyes wide.

"Yep! It's perfectly safe!" She gave the three four year olds a confident smile and a thumbs up. Maki looked like she was going to get down from the bunk but Rin threw her arm in front of the other child, nearly smacking her in the face.

"Hang on nya! It not's lava, but it still could be dangerous! Rin will go first nya!" Rin turned herself around and started down the ladder. Hanayo leaned over and grabbed Rin's hand.

"Be careful, Rin-chan! Don't burn!"

"If Kayo-chin believes in Rin, Rin won't burn!" Rin declared, hopping down from the ladder and forcing Hanayo to let go of her. She landed safely in the space between the two beds. "Rin didn't burn! The floor is safe!" Maki and Hanayo cheered and descended from the top bunk. All three then gathered around Kotori. "Where's dinner nya?! Rin is hungry!"

"...Um…" Umi didn't really know what to make of what was going on inside of Room 3. She had only been told to get Eri, but she couldn't even spot the blonde. Actually, the only occupant she could see was Nico.

"Shh! I'll be able to hear them breathing if I concentrate!" So they were playing hide-and-seek, Umi finally realized. She thought it would take great skill to hide for an extended period of time in such a small room.

"I-If you want, I can help?" She offered, wanting to hurry up and get dinner.

"No! If I let you help, I wouldn't have found either of them on my own! And that sucks!" With nothing to do but watch, Umi peered out into the hallway in the direction of Room 1. It looked like Kotori had just gotten the three girls out. She would have to hurry up and get them to Room 2.

"Eri-san! Your sister is looking for you!" She shouted, ignoring Nico's groan. Almost immediately, the door to the dark room opened and two faces poked out.

"Really?" Eri asked, looking directly at Umi. She nodded. The door opened further and both of the hiding girls stepped out from behind it. "The game's over then. Nico lost."

"You said that room was off-limits!" Nico complained loudly. "No wonder I couldn't find you! That's cheating!"

"It's not cheating. I didn't say how long it was off-limits." Nozomi tutted, somehow calm in the face of Nico's fury. "By the way, it was off-limits until Nico-chan's turn to be it."

"That's not fair! Eri, I thought you were following the rules!"

"I was, but Nozomi didn't say anything about that room being off-limits, right?" Nico would have torn her hair out in anger if Umi didn't choose that moment to interrupt their conversation.

"It's also time for dinner so…if we could get going…" Umi said slowly, not really wanting to face Nico's anger. The black-haired girl was still giving glares to both Eri and Nozomi, the former looking confused and the latter smiling smugly.

"Fine, whatever. Let's get something to eat." Nico stormed off, passing Umi and heading towards where Kotori was waiting with the three four year olds.

"It's really boring here, onee-chan." Yukiho commented. She and Arisa had not been crying, as Honoka had expected when she arrived at the room, but were just sitting around on the ground. "So we made noise. And then some nee-chans came to play with us!"

"Yeah...but don't do it again, okay?" Yukiho pouted, as did Arisa. "Next time, just come find me or Eri-chan. You know where our rooms are."

"I know!" Arisa exclaimed. "Nee-chan is three!"

"Yes, that's right, Arisa-chan. Eri-chan is in room 3." Arisa looked proud of herself. Not wanting to be outdone, Yukiho raised her hand.

"Nee-chan is in two!"

"Yukiho is right too! Both of you are so smart!" The two three year olds smiled and Honoka couldn't help smiling back.

"Oh, Honoka. You're here too?" Eri walked into the room. "Umi said Arisa was looking for me."

"That's what I thought." Honoka told Eri about the girls in Room 4. "I told them that they shouldn't make noise like that anymore."

"But we didn't leave our rooms to check on them either." Eri pointed out, making Honoka wince in guilty pain. "...let's just go eat. I'll thank them later, for looking in on them instead of leaving them alone." The two older sisters took their little sisters by their hands and led them out of the room, where the rest of the gathered group was still waiting in various states of hunger.

"After dinner is the shower, right? That's when the schedule goes away?" Yukiho asked as she stabbed a piece of broccoli with her fork. She put the piece into her mouth, staring at Honoka for an answer.

"Yep." Honoka said, eating her own food. She had a napkin at the ready, however, just in case there was a sudden mess. "But don't forget to get a new schedule in the morning."

"I won't!" The toddler had to stand up on the bench to get a better look of her own plate. She proceeded to stab a sausage with her fork and nibbled on the end of it.

The dining hall was almost as large as the central room, if the central room had been a rectangle. Two rows of ten metal tables made up the left side of the room. The right side was where they picked up their food, prepared for them by mechanical arms. There wasn't much variation between the meals, so they either ate or went hungry. Luckily for Honoka, her little sister wasn't picky with her food. The same couldn't be said of the child on her other side.

"I don't want this…" Maki muttered, shoving the broccoli on her plate to the side furthest away from her. Across from her, Rin was cheerfully eating all that was on her plate and gently convincing Hanayo to do the same.

"Now, now, Maki-chan." Honoka said, taking the redhead's fork from her. Spearing a piece of broccoli, she held her hand under the vegetable to prevent it from falling to the ground and faced Maki. "Here. Say 'ah' for me."

"Don't wanna." Maki turned her head away, pouting. Honoka thought back to when her mom would try to make her eat something she didn't want to. She put down the fork and pretended to cry. The reaction was precisely the one she wanted. "Don't cry! Look, I'm eating it!" Honoka peeked out behind one hand as the girl picked up the fork and ate the broccoli.

"How does it taste?" Maki didn't respond immediately.

"...Not that bad." The four year old conceded, eating another piece of broccoli. Honoka smiled and returned her attention to her meal.

The showers were small, much like most of the things in the shelter. There were only ten stalls, and the water had an auto-turnoff function at ten minutes. So they had to wait their turn and once they were in, they had to shower quickly to make the most of the limited time they had in the shower. But the schedules did wash right off without any scrubbing, leaving their arms bare for the next day's schedule.

The next morning, Honoka received her schedule from the interface as she had done the previous afternoon. "Umi-chan, Kotori-chan, did you get this too?" The three girls stood together in their room as they compared their arm schedules.

 _7:00 Breakfast_

 _After eating, meet in Central._

 _9:00 Class_

 _11:00 Recess_

 _12:00 Lunch_

 _1:00 Study_

 _3:00 Up to You_

 _7:00 Dinner_

 _8:00 Shower_

"They're all the same. Maybe one of our friends has something different?" Kotori suggested, seeing as their new friends were in different age groups. "Also, what's central?"

"Let's ask the thingy!" Honoka said, pointing at the machine by their door. Nozomi had kindly instructed them how to use the machine the previous night, before she had to return to her own room. She pushed the button on the side.

 _Ask your questions._ The machine intoned. It's voice was very similar to the one they heard from the screen in the large round room.

"What's 'Central'?" She asked, keeping her finger on the button.

 _Central is the main room of the bunker._ Honoka released the pressure on the button and turned to her friends. "I guess it's the big room."

"Sounds like it." Nico said, her gaze flickering between Eri and the button that the blonde was still pressing. "When are you going to let go?"

"Oh, right." Eri removed her finger from the interface and stepped away from it. "I wonder why we have to meet there though?"

"The voice will tell us at that time, maybe. Let's compare schedules to see if they're the same." Nozomi said. The three of them put their arms out and looked back and forth between them to see if there were any differences.

 _7:00 Breakfast_

 _After eating, meet in Central._

 _9:00 Class_

 _11:00 Recess_

 _12:00 Lunch_

 _1:00 Class_

 _3:00 Study_

 _4:00 Up to You_

 _7:00 Dinner_

 _8:00 Shower_

"No, they're all the same." Nico confirmed, allowing her arm to relax at her side. It was tiring, holding it out so that both of her roommates could see the writing. She looked at the clock. "It's getting close to seven...should we go?"

"Hm...I want to check on Maki-chan. Her mom told me to take care of her." Nozomi said, heading to the doorway.

"And the high jump contest begins now!" Rin announced, her right arm shining brightly with the new ink that had been pushed onto its surface. "First to jump is Kayo-chin!" It was a new game they were doing, jumping from the top bunk to the bed on the other side of the room. Rin had tested the distance and found it doable, so now she was having her two friends compete in a fake contest. They weren't sure what their schedules said, but they were okay with waiting a bit in their room before finding someone who could tell them what to do since the first time on their schedule was seven. And it wasn't seven yet. So with that reasoning, they were playing.

"Here I go!" Hanayo launched herself off the top bunk, grazing the ceiling with her back, before landing with a thud the other bed.

"And the judges say-" Rin put a finger under her nose to resemble a moustache. "Goal!"

"Yay!" Hanayo cheered, getting down from the bed to make room for Maki.

"Now it's Maki-chan's turn!" Maki prepared to jump, maneuvering herself so that her teddy bear wouldn't hinder her movement. She sprung out from the top bunk. At that moment, Nozomi opened the door and walked in. Naturally, the older girl panicked at seeing her charge jumping from the top bunk bed. In an attempt to catch her, Nozomi dove right into the mattress while Maki landed safely on top. "Goal! Nozomi-chan, whatcha doing nya?"

"N-Nothing…" Nozomi said, rubbing her forehead. It hurt quite a bit, but it wouldn't do to cry in front of the younger girls. "Did you get your schedules?"

"Yep!" Maki showed her arm to Nozomi. "We couldn't read most of it."

 _7:00 Breakfast_

 _After eating, meet in Central._

 _9:00 Class_

 _11:00 Recess_

 _12:00 Lunch_

 _1:00 Up to You_

 _7:00 Dinner_

 _8:00 Shower_

Nozomi explained what each of the time corresponded to, but she didn't know where they were supposed to go for 'class' or 'recess' or 'up to you'. She supposed it would be explained during their 'meet in Central' command. She was a bit envious, though, of the trio's much shorter schedule.

* * *

 **Not sure what to put down here.**

 **Description of the bunker so far:**

 **Top Floor (dispatch room): This floor is connected to the surface by three separate hallways. Each hallway is currently locked by doors to prevent strangers from entering/girls from leaving. The center of the room rise, revealing stairs that descend to the second floor.**

 **Second Floor (living quarters): This floor has most of the utilities for underground living. There are two hallways that lead to bedrooms, two hallways that lead to showers, and one hallway that leads to a dining room. The central room is used for when the main program needs to impart a message to the girls. The center of the room seems to have the same capability of descending as the top floor room does.**

 **Third Floor (?): ?- The girls don't know there is a third floor yet. Find out what this floor holds in the next chapter! :D**


	4. Chapter 4

Dessert Maniac: A-Rise balances each other pretty well, so I tried to make that happen in this way. But it ended up with Tsubasa yelling at Honoka… Sometimes I forget that they're kids (and accidentally have them use words that they wouldn't know at that age), so my attempts to patch that mistake is having Maki, Rin, and Hanayo play with their imaginations. I'm glad it worked out. :D

TsundereHeavyCruiser: I will hint at some pairings, but they won't be main focus of the story.

 **Who else is hyped that Love Live Sunshine is finally airing? After watching the first episode...Aqours have captured my heart as well.**

 **No, I have not forgotten Muse. If I did, I would have to quit fanfiction out of shame. And because then I would have no writing that I could be proud of. MUSE FOREVER!**

 ***awkward coughing* Anyway...back to the story.**

* * *

After a breakfast at the dining hall, Honoka and her friends stuck close to a wall while they awaited the meeting mentioned on their schedule. She saw Tsubasa and waved to the three girls in the trio. Anju waved back, as did Erena, but Tsubasa scowled in their direction. Honoka wondered what she did to the other girl to earn her hostility so quickly.

 _Allowing bottom level access._ The girls closest to the center of the room had to scramble to the sides to avoid being lifted up by the floor. Similar to how they had descended down from the room their parents had brought them to, the floor lifted up to reveal a staircase spiraling downwards. The screen appeared on the far side of the room and Honoka had to move so that she could get a better look at it. Not that doing so would have helped her, the screen was nothing more than a moving line. _Take the stairs down._ After stating the message, the screen vanished again.

"Let's go?" Honoka suggested, moving towards the new opening.

"What if we can't come back up?" Umi fretted, considering how the stairs had been retracted into the ceiling after they descended to their current floor the previous day. Kotori took her more scared friend's hand, smiling bravely.

"I'm sure there's a reason we have to go down." The brunette said, pulling Umi gently to where Honoka was waiting. "Don't be scared, Umi-chan. We'll be together."

"Y-You say that but…" Umi still glanced backwards at the top of the staircase as she descended the steps, led by Kotori.

Honoka stared at the staircase, half-expecting it to go back up like it did the previous day. When it didn't, even after all of the girls had climbed down, she got bored and started looking around the room they were now in. Unlike the central rooms in the two upper floors, this one didn't branch off into different hallways. Instead, many doors lined the wall that made up the boundary of the round room. As she looked around, and noticed that her friends were doing the same, three of the doors opened. Then the screen appeared, projected onto the doors where it normally appeared on the wall on the room above.

 _There are three rooms accessible to you at this moment: the Library, the Classroom, and the Playground. The Classroom is where you go for class, as marked on your schedule._ At the mention of the schedule, Honoka looked at her arm, then up as the door indicating the direction of the classroom lit up with a green light. _The Library is where you will study._ The light over the Classroom door died out and a different doorframe lit up with the same green light. _The Playground is where you can find games and toys for your enjoyment. That is where you will go during Recess._

"What does 'enjoyment' mean?" Maki asked Nozomi, tugging on the older girl's arm to get her attention.

"I think it means 'fun'." Nozomi whispered back. The redhead nodded, and directed her attention back to the screen.

 _You may spend your time during the 'Up to You' section of your schedule wherever you please. Follow your schedules._ The screen vanished, but signs appeared above each of the opened doors to remind the girls where they were supposed to go.

"Well, we have class first." Honoka commented, checking her schedule once more.

"Both Yukiho and Arisa have 'Up to You' as their schedule until dinner." Eri said, reminding her of her job of taking care of her little sister. "What do you think we should do, Honoka?"

"Hm...Yukiho, Arisa-chan, what do you want to do?" Honoka asked, kneeling down to the two girls' height.

"Play!" Yukiho cheered.

"Ah, ah, Arisa too!" Arisa chimed in.

"Play it is." Honoka stood back up, looking at each of her friends. "I'll take them to the playground. Everyone else go to class first." She took Yukiho and Arisa by their hands and started to the door that would take them to the room with the toys, according to the screen.

"Nee-chan, when's mama and papa coming to pick us up?" Yukiho asked as they walked down the hallway. The door was a lie, it led to another hallway, not a room.

"I-I don't know." Honoka admitted. When her parents were going to pick her up wasn't the biggest question in her mind. She had enjoyed the new situation of being without adults and with her friends, new and old alike, that she hadn't given it much thought.

"Hm~ Maybe you can ask!" Yukiho pointed at the interface that was in the room. The room was filled with plush toys and board games, but Honoka paid them little attention as she turned to the machine placed next to the entrance of the room. Her little sister and Arisa ran off to play with the new toys. She had to head back to class, but with the question so fresh in her mind, she stepped closer to the machine and pressed the button on its side.

"When are our mama and papa going to get us?"

"In the end, Honoka didn't come." Nico muttered. They had just been released for recess, which would be followed by lunch. Then the six year olds would return to the classroom for more lessons, while the five year olds visited the library and the four year olds were allowed to do whatever they wanted. "I don't blame her. It was no fun, sitting in there."

"I learned lots!" Rin said, bounding around the small hallway connecting the classroom to the central room. Nico snorted, crossing her arms. The class had covered things like counting and basic kanji, commanding the girls to practice the strokes over and over again. She and the other older girls already knew how to write, and consequently found it boring. "Rin can write Rin's name now nya!"

"I can too!" Maki shouted, not wanting to be outdone. Nozomi patted her 'little sister' on the head, not wanting the two to have another competition.

"But where's Honoka-chan? I didn't think she would not come to class." She was addressing the ginger's closest friends as she, like the majority of the group, didn't know Honoka all that well.

"Maybe she's with Yukiho and Arisa." Eri suggested, leading their group to the playground. Despite the number of girls that had gathered in the room following the end of the class, it didn't take long for them to find the toddlers. Or rather, for the toddlers to find them.

"Nee-chan!" Arisa hugged Eri. As the blonde tended to her little sister, Umi and Kotori scanned the room for the tell-tale orange of their friend. "Let's play, let's play!"

"Yukiho-chan, where is Honoka-chan?" Nozomi asked the other toddler, who seemed to be looking through their group for her older sister.

"Dunno! Not here! Where is nee-chan?" Umi and Kotori exchanged troubled looks. For Honoka to leave her sister and not attend class, something much be seriously wrong. They had to find her.

"We'll go find her." Nozomi said, giving the younger girl a smile to reassure her as Yukiho was starting to look worried. "Maki-chan, Rin-chan, and Hanayo-chan can stay here."

"Okay!" The three four year olds chorused. They weren't that concerned with where Honoka was with so many things they could play with in front of them.

"And watch Yukiho and Arisa for us!" Eri added, raising her voice as the three girls were already running off. Arisa gave chase, prompting Yukiho to follow her.

"So now we have to look for Honoka? What a pain." The five girls left the playground, knowing that they were not following the instructions given to them. But no repercussions seem to come immediately, so they ascended the stairs to the second floor in search of the missing girl.

"She might be in our room." Kotori suggested, leading the way down the hall. She almost didn't spot Honoka, curled up in a ball in the corner of the room, behind the bunk beds.

"Honoka, what's wrong? You missed class." Eri asked, placing her hand on the other girl's shoulder. She felt the younger girl shiver before turning to see who had touched her. Eri nearly fell backwards at Honoka's face, made red from constant rubbing. The girl had been crying, and for quite some time from her somewhat haggard appearance.

"Eriii-chaaaan…" Halfway between a whine and a cry, her name sounded desperate coming from Honoka's mouth.

"What's wrong?" She repeated her question, wrapping her arm comfortingly around the other girl's shoulders. The rest of the group leaned in, wanting to hear.

"W-When I took Yukiho and A-Arisa-chan to the playground-" She hiccupped, fresh tears streaming down her face. "Y-Yukiho, she asked me...-w-when our mama and p-papa are going to pick us up. I didn't know. And there was a machine, l-like that one…" She pointed towards the interface. It hummed quietly, indicating it was still on. "S-So I asked it...what Yukiho asked me…"

"And what did it say?" Eri asked, her stomach sinking even though she didn't know why. Part of her wanted Honoka to stop talking, yet her conscience told her that Honoka should let it all out.

"'They are never coming.'...it said." Honoka dropped her face into her hands, unable to look up at her friends to take in their expressions. Her imitation of the machine's emotionless voice was so close that Nozomi actually looked at the interface before taking in what Honoka had said. "A-And then I ran...I didn't tell Yukiho... or Arisa-chan…"

"They're...never coming…?" Eri repeated in a stunned tone. Her chest hurt, and her vision blurred as hot tears arrived. "No...no…"

"Mama...isn't going to come?" Kotori stared at the ceiling, as if doing so would open a tunnel between where they were and the surface. "No! I want to go back!" The brunette took off, running out of the room in a mad dash for the central room. She reached the room and looked around for a way back up, but the only stairs led down, deeper into the earth. "LET ME UP!" She screamed, pounding her fists against the wall where the screen normally appeared. Nothing happened, and she bit her lip, tears running down her cheeks. They fell to the floor, where they glistened under the fluorescent lights of the room. "Mama!" She sobbed, hitting the wall again. She continued to pound her fists against the wall until someone grabbed them and stopped her. Turning ever so slightly, she was faced with Umi. "LET ME GO!" She shouted backwards at her friend, wrenching her hands away from her friend. Umi stood there silently, not saying or doing anything. "Umi-chan, help me! We can find a way out!" Umi shook her head, still not saying a word. "Why?! Why won't you help me?! WHY UMI-CHAN?!" She froze as Umi stepped towards her. Panic gripped her, and she instinctively backed away from the bluenette. "No...No, don't come any closer!" With speed that only Umi possessed, she closed the distance and enveloped her close friend in a hug.

"We...can't go back…" Umi mumbled into her ear. "I know, Kotori-chan…" Kotori's shoulder grew wet from Umi's tears as the girl cried silently. "I want my mama too...but...we can't. Not anymore…"

Kotori's sobs echoed down the halls, to where the six year olds were still huddled in the room with Honoka. Nico, no longer irritated, was forcing herself to comfort Honoka so that she wouldn't break down crying. She knew her parents; they wouldn't just abandon her for no reason. Which meant that she was there for a reason, and her parents wouldn't come for her because they couldn't. It didn't mean that they didn't love her. A wail threatened to come out of her throat, but she forced it down, concentrating instead on stopping Honoka's tears.

The other two had stopped crying as well, taking the news with relative ease. In Eri's case, she was more concerned about Arisa than before, now that she knew no help would be coming to them. Nozomi was used to being alone at home more often than not, and though she would miss her parents, crying about it wouldn't help. They would have to tell the younger girls, and sooner was better than later.

Honoka sat down in front of Maki, who was seated on her bed, hugging her teddy bear for comfort. In the other two rooms, Eri and Nozomi were breaking the news to Hanayo and Rin. Why she had been chosen to tell Maki instead of Nico, Honoka would never figure out.

"No! No! I don't believe you!" Maki shouted, angry tears forming at the corners of her purple eyes. Honoka closed her eyes, having feared this reaction.

"Maki-chan, listen-"

"NO!" The girl clasped both of her hands over her ears. "Mama will come for me...that's right...she'll come for me…" The rest of Maki's mumbling was lost to Honoka's ears. She had to make Maki understand their situation and accept it as reality. With nothing else coming to mind as to what she should do, she hugged the younger girl. "...coming for me…"

"She's not." Honoka almost lost her hold as Maki hit her with the teddy bear that she had. "Maki-chan, you have to listen to me."

"I DON'T WANT TO!" The girl wailed, smacking Honoka's head again and again with the teddy bear. Honoka kept her grip on Maki's body, hugging the girl close. She could hear the redhead's heartbeat speeding up. "YOU'RE LYING! I HATE YOU!" She stayed silent, enduring the blows to her head. Slowly, but surely, the attacks were weakening. "Mama...mama…where's mama…?" Honoka lifted her head cautiously to find Maki staring at her. The four year old sniffled, wiping without success at her tears.

"She's not coming." Maki nodded, whimpering still. She held her arms out, releasing the teddy bear and Honoka responded by hugging her close. "No one is coming. For me, for you, for anyone." Maki's sobs intensified against her chest but Honoka's eyes were dry. She saw her next plan of action now. "Listen, Maki-chan. Me, and Umi-chan-"

"-and Nico-chan and Eri-chan-" Hanayo sniffled, trying to hold back her tears to listen to Nozomi.

"-and Kotori and Nozomi and Honoka-" Rin looked up at Eri with tear-filled eyes.

"...we'll all be a family from now on."

* * *

 **My experience with writing feels is usually not good.**

 **This is the last chapter with them at their beginning age.**


	5. Chapter 5

Fedora force: And as a family, they will argue with each other like actual siblings! Somewhat, though they do truly support each other.

StrawberryTrapper: Whether they meet each other normally or through circumstances like this, Muse will always be true friends. (and sometimes a little more.) Regarding the other bunkers...you'll find out soon.

chi2lyn: Figuring out how to break bad news (even to characters) is really hard. Like, one of the hardest things to do ever (besides life in general) and leaving them with a false hope wouldn't advance any of their characters. I don't really know why I made Tsubasa a bit of a bully, she just turned out that way when I was planning out the chapter.

Dessert Maniac: The main reason for Honoka telling Maki: It was for the HonoMaki! Also because Honoka's the main character so she gets more lines. I imagine Nico to be more mature when she was younger, before having little siblings make her crave attention. I hope the time skip lives up to your expectations! :D

 **My plan for writing this chapter went something like this: *something about Yukiho and Arisa turning fourteen* *ignore the schedule* *Umi scolding Honoka (again)* *some HonoMaki* *someone on that time of month* *oh yeah, they have to get out of the bunker now***

 **And so the chapter was written. Please enjoy.**

* * *

~Eleven years later (give or take)~

There was a knock at the bedroom door. Honoka, lying on her bunk, lifted her head an inch to look at the door before lying back down. The door opened and Yukiho poked her head in. "Hey, nee-chan? You told us to see you after we've finished eating, right?"

"Ah, Yukiho! Arisa-chan! Come in, come in!" Honoka sat up, her legs dangling over the edge of the bunk. "You've both gotten your schedules for today?"

"Yep." Yukiho brandished her arm, showing the black ink stamped there to her older sister. Arisa did the same. "We're fourteen now, so we have the Range as our first hour."

"Hm~ Lucky~ The Range is really fun! Compared to things like Class now…" Honoka sighed; just thinking about being in class put her in a bad mood.

"So, what did you want to talk to us about, Honoka-chan?" Arisa asked, getting Honoka's attention back on what she was supposed to be doing.

"Yeah! Since you're fourteen, you can totally disregard the schedule! The system can't check if you're following it or not, so you can just avoid things you don't want to do and go where you want to. Except for meals, showers, and the Range. The Range actually scans for your card and schedule, so you can't go in unless you're scheduled to…" Honoka trailed off, wishing that she had the Range on her schedule. Unfortunately, in her mind at least, she didn't for the day. There was no way for her to hack into the system that ran the whole bunker and change her schedule. "But anyway! I just wanted to tell you about that! I was actually going to tell you when I first figured it out, but Umi-chan got mad at me...So did Eri-chan, actually…"

"Of course she would." The ginger flinched as her childhood friend rounded the corner into the doorway. "Honoka, you can't keep skipping class!"

"I can too, Umi-chan!" Honoka grumbled, hopping down from her bunk to face the bluenette. "It's not like we learn anything useful there!"

"We do! It's essential survival skills for the outside world!" Umi retorted, crossing her arms in the face of Honoka's obstinate refusal to attend. Yukiho and Arisa looked between the two arguing teenagers as if they were at a sports game, though neither had ever attended such an event.

"And when are we ever going outside? We've been stuck here most of our lives! It's not necessary and on top of that, it's boring!" Honoka mimicked Umi and crossed her arms. "So I'm not going!"

"Honoka, how many ways have we been taught to purify water?" Umi asked her suddenly.

"Uh…" Honoka drew a blank on the answer, trying desperately to remember what the number was.

"And can you describe the process?" Umi pressured her with another question. Honoka's head hurt a bit, trying to remember. "If you can't even answer that, you need more class. Yukiho, Arisa, what's the answer?"

"There are ten ways, I think?" Umi nodded at Arisa's answer.

"And you can boil it, distill it...and the rest need specific equipment that we don't really have…" Yukiho answered, lowering her head at being unable to remember the rest of the methods.

"See? These two know more than you do, Honoka. So you need to go to class. Come on." Umi grabbed Honoka by the arm and started trying to drag her out of the room. Honoka planted her feet, not wanting to go. "You're the leader of this shelter! We can't have you be slacking off!"

"I am not the leader of the shelter! I am only the representative of Muse when we have a council!" Honoka groaned; Umi was far stronger than her now, especially when it came to arm strength. Her arm felt like it was going to bruise where Umi was holding her.

"Whatever! Everyone here looks to you for answers, ever since you broke the news to everyone years ago!" Eleven years ago, after Honoka had told her friends that their parents were never coming, she had called a meeting of all the shelter girls. It was the first event that hadn't been scheduled by the programs that ran their lives, and she had been the one to speak the truth about their abandonment beneath the ground. She had comforted them as best she could with her words at the time. Umi wasn't lying; the other girls did approach Honoka with questions from time to time, with a respect that Honoka didn't understand. "You might as well be the leader!"

"Having trouble again?" Maki asked, peering into the room. "Oh, good morning, Yukiho, Arisa. Happy birthday."

"Thank you!" The two girls beamed at being recognized on their special date.

"Yes. Maki, do you think you could help out?" Umi asked, still trying to pull Honoka out of the room with little success.

"I would, but I'm busy ignoring my schedule. Honoka, would you like to join me?" Honoka hoped the gratitude in her gaze reached Maki. Umi looked dumbfounded at the younger girl, who most had expected to grow up into a serious type like the bluenette. It seemed that she was taking after her second adopted sister (Honoka claimed her as one after insisting that the nine of them were a family, irritating Nozomi a bit. But they were cool now. She hoped.) instead, treating the schedule as if it were nothing.

"What are you doing?" Honoka asked, rubbing her arm. Umi had finally let go of her in her shock at being turned against.

"Going to the library to get some books, then to the infirmary to learn the medicines I haven't yet."

"And what do I do?" Truth be told, Honoka was less excited about going with Maki after finding out what she planned to do. It sounded just as bad as going to class to learn about surviving outside the bunker.

"Obviously-" A strangely creepy glint came into Maki's eyes. "-you'll be my test subject for whatever I can't understand from the books." Fear of the redhead overtook Honoka. She took off, wanting to put as much distance as she could from Maki for the time being. "...did I go too far?"

"I appreciate the help, Maki, but you could try not freaking out Honoka to get her to follow the schedule." Umi sighed, preparing to give chase after her frightened friend. "Yukiho, Arisa, just...do whatever you want. For today, since it's your birthday." And the bluenette was gone, calling out Honoka's name as she ran through the bunker.

Honoka sat with her head down on the table in front of her. She had gotten so frightened from Maki that she had actually ran to the classroom, and by the time she realized that and got up to leave, Umi and Kotori had arrived. With her friends seated on both sides, she resigned herself to her fate of being lectured to by a robotic voice for an hour. She needed a few minutes to get used to the absence of the toneless voice.

Getting up from her seat-Umi and Kotori had gone somewhere without her now that class was over-Honoka left the classroom and looked at her schedule. According to it, she had an hour of study time at the library now, but she decided to ignore it. Looking around at all the rooms that were now open on the third floor, she wondered what she should do. Going to the infirmary was definitely out, if Maki was still there.

Honoka walked over to the door leading to the infirmary anyway, her curiosity getting the better of her. Maki had her back to the entrance of the room, a thick book in one hand and a bottle of medicine in the other. The redhead was mumbling quietly to herself, so Honoka backed away. She wouldn't get in the way if Maki wanted to learn the medicines, even if she didn't understand why the younger girl wanted to.

She decided on doing a few runs at the Course before going back to her room for a pre-lunch rest and headed down the hall to the room. The Course was a large room filled with obstacles for the girls to practice with. It wasn't as fun as the Range, but doing some physical exercise after stressing her mind would be relaxing. "Oh, Nico-chan, Nozomi-chan, you have the Course right now?"

"Yeah." Nico bounced up and down, prepping herself for the first obstacle. "I don't think you do though."

"No, but I didn't want to sit in the library for an hour." The black-haired girl nodded, then took off running. She vaulted over the first jump with ease, even though the jump was more than half of her height. They had practiced these jumps and dives so many times over the years, that it wasn't that surprising that Nico was able to vault over an obstacle of that size. "Where's Eri-chan?"

"It's that time again. She's lying in our room." Honoka subconsciously brought her hand up to her stomach, understanding Eri's pain even though the blonde wasn't with them.

"Have you brought her medicine from the infirmary?" Nozomi shook her head. "Why not?"

"Eri-chi insisted on us going about our normal day and not to worry about her. I'm pretty sure she wouldn't appreciate either of us skipping training to take care of her."

"Maki-chan's in the infirmary. Why don't you ask her to take Eri-chan the medicine?"

"I'll do that. Thank you, Honoka-chan." The purple-haired girl walked out of the room. Honoka turned her attention to the obstacle course in front of her and prepared to run.

Eri joined them for lunch, saying that she felt much better with the medicine, but the blonde looked shaken up for some reason. Considering her earlier encounter with Maki the mad doctor, Honoka wondered what the redhead did to shake Eri up so much. But when the alarm bells started sounding, all of them were made uneasy. Never in their eleven years of staying in the bunker had they heard such a loud noise. _Attention all residents of the shelter. There are no more storm signals. Access to the surface opening._

"Access…" Umi repeated in a stunned voice.

"...to the surface?" Honoka finished, equally stunned as her friend. The sentence was repeated over the dining tables as the announcement sank in. She sprung into action, tripping herself in her hurry to leave the table. She sprinted down the hallway connecting the dining hall to the central room of the second floor. The stairs from the first floor were descending, connecting the base of the second floor. Now a single spiral staircase ran all the way from the top floor to the bottom, something Honoka and the rest of the shelter girls had never seen. _War Room has been opened. Please head to the War Room._

Even though the prospect of seeing the outside world called her, Honoka headed down the spiral staircase. Lunch was forgotten as the girls filed down the stairs to the third floor, following Honoka's lead. She had been right. Even though the voice hadn't dictated where the war room was, the only door that had never opened in the entire bunker was on the bottom floor. It was cramped with all of the girls in there though.

" _Hello, girls of the Tokyo bunker."_ Screens showed up on three walls, each showing the same balding man. " _If you are seeing me, then the storm has passed. You are now allowed to go up to the surface that you were forced to leave. Congratulations on surviving all these years!"_ There were unhappy mutters at the choice of words the man was using. " _I am the governor of Tokyo, though most of you won't know who I am, or was, depending on when you are seeing this message. You have been training for years without knowing why. You have been training to prepare for a war that is sure to come with most of the world decimated by the storm. You are to join with the rest of Japan's bunkers to protect our nation from invaders. Such has been dictated by the Prime Minister. In the far room, you will find guns similar to the toys you have been training with, along with ammunition. Protect our nation."_ The man was replaced by a red circle on a white background. It took a few seconds for Honoka to realize the flag of Japan was being shown; she had only seen it in a book before, and never in color. An unrecognizable melody played along with the flag. Even though all of them could understand the words, none of them knew what significance the song had. The screens vanished upon the conclusion of the song and a door at the far end of the room opened.

"I know what the old dude said. Protect Japan, or whatever, right?" Honoka waited for the crowd to die down. Having nowhere else to hold a meeting, the girls were standing on the second floor and Honoka on the staircase slightly above them. "But here's the thing. We can't. Not yet. We need food and water. We need to see what the world looks like. So until we've secured all those things, we will not heed his words. Our first action will be to look outside, but before we do so, I need to set some rules. Umi-chan?" Her childhood friend was no longer as shy, and she willingly climbed the steps to Honoka's level.

"Going outside will mean there are dangers that we have no experience of. That being said, our shelter is our homebase in all operations. You may break off from the shelter if you see fit and live on your own in the upper world, but doing so means you must stay clear of Tokyo territory. Those that wish to return to the shelter for food and water must contribute in some way, whether you bring back water, food, or simply extend our territory. Above all, if you see other survivors, help them if needed, avoid them if not. Is that understood?" A unanimous agreement came from the girls gathered.

"We ascend! From the ground up!" Honoka called out, hurrying up the rest of the staircase to the top floor. The last time she had been up here, she had been five years old. Not frightened of being without her parents, she had sought playmates. And they had become the people she trusted the most. The doors opened as she neared them, opening to a hallway that was dark. Unlike the interior room, the hallways had suffered damage from the storm, with decomposing trash creating a stench unlike any the girls had smelled before. Honoka broke into a run, wanting partially to get away from the smell and partially to get to the above world. A towering city, though blurry in her child's memories, glistened brightly within her mind.

She stepped out onto the cracked asphalt, ascending the last step from the underground. Buildings lay on their sides, knocked over by the force of the storm. Cars were scattered across the street, on their backs, on their sides. One was even wedged halfway into a building. Weeds poked out from the destroyed roads and sidewalks. "So this...this is Tokyo…"

"Nee-chan…" Yukiho had heard Honoka tell tales of the city they descended from, describing it as a shining city, even at night. If Honoka broke down now, the shelter could dissolve into chaos.

"Looks like we have some work to do." Honoka said, smiling. The ginger turned to her younger sister. "What is it, Yukiho?"

"...Nevermind, it's nothing." Of course her sister wouldn't be put down by something like this. That's why she led the base with such ease. Honoka shone brighter than any memory could.

* * *

 **Everything focus on Honoka because Honoka is the main character. The sometimes absent-minded leader of the Tokyo bunker.**

 **Umi is her second-in-command. She's really come out of her shell.**

 **Kotori wasn't mentioned much in this chapter but she spends a lot of time with Umi so just imagine that she's there.**

 **Maki takes after Nozomi and Honoka. Whether or not this is a good thing will come to question later.**

 **Rin seems to be getting along great with Hanayo.**

 **Hanayo didn't get any lines this time around though. (Neither did Rin.)**

 **Eri is the unfortunate victim of that time.**

 **Nozomi cares a lot for Eri, doesn't she?**

 **Nico is not the center of attention.**

 **I forgot what I was supposed to write in this section.**

 **Please review. :D**


	6. Chapter 6

**I decided to have the characters answer any questions that applied to them.**

 **RestaU** **: And for their first adventure in the world...their destination is… (No spoilers. It's in the chapter. :D)**

 **AnimeGrim** **: I'll update as frequently as I can. Usually around 2~3 days between updates if I'm not busy.**

Yukiho: Our birthdates? They're the same, yeah.

Arisa: We don't have official birthdays like the rest of the cast. To get around that, we were given the same birthday.

Yukiho: No date is specified though. I think the story went something like 'Arisa didn't have her birthdate registered in the system when she was put in. She needs a date to turn fourteen and enter the Range with Yukiho. Let's just give them the same date.' ...or something like that.

Eri: We don't have that much hope in finding them, and Honoka seems more interested in exploring the city now anyway. And regarding that event last chapter… *shudders* Maki offered to stick a suppository in for me to help with the cramps. It wasn't funny!

Maki: I thought it was. And I gave you the proper medicine afterwards, so it's not like any harm was done.

 **Dessert Maniac** **: It's just me trying to push pairings as (not really)subtly as I can while still maintaining the actual plot of the story.**

Maki: I don't really know why I'm interested in medicine. I just really liked looking at the bottles when the infirmary first opened up. And then I found the books relating to them in the library. I guess it just happened.

Honoka: Ehehe~ I led our group for the most part. Like that time we played tag! Then everyone started following me.

Umi: If I left it all to Honoka, she'd surely get us in trouble. Someone level-headed needs to be in charge, so I ended up taking the second position next to Honoka.

Honoka: Yeah, but I do a pretty good job on my own, don't I?

Umi: Only because me and Kotori are working behind the scenes.

 **chi2lyn** **: I'm not sure how you managed to review twice on the same chapter…**

Nozomi: Believe it or not, that's actually how Nico-chi reacted.

Nico: You didn't wake up with a blood stain on your bed.

Nozomi: Okay, I'm sorry. I take it back. It was funnier when I had my first one.

Nico: You try waking up to blood dripping from the top bunk!

Nozomi: The pain was worth it, laughing so much at Nico-chi freaking out.

Eri: Wasn't that the same day that Maki passed out?

Nico: Yeah. She came in, looking for Nozomi, only to see both her and me covered in blood. I don't blame her for passing out.

 **And now to the main story.**

* * *

After their initial look at the surface world, the girls returned to the bunker. Not that they didn't want to explore their new surroundings, but faced with their suddenly enlarged world, a certain fear set in. It wasn't the city that they had remembered from their memories or that they saw in the few pictures that they had of their city and proved too daunting for most to remain outside for longer than a few minutes.

So Honoka entered the War Room the next day with her eight friends the next day, with the intention of arming herself and the rest for a true exploration. "Hm...What do you think suits me?" There was an amazing arsenal of guns to pick from, unlike the plastic weaponry they had practiced with. Umi walked over to a rifle, taking it off from the wall. "That?"

"No, I was thinking of taking this for myself." The bluenette lifted it to her eye level, looking through the scope attached to the top of the weapon. "My aim is better than most, so this suits me best." She hung the strap of the rifle over her shoulder and swung the weapon onto her back. "We'd best not use too much ammo since we don't have the ability to make more right now." That being said, she only took a single cartridge of spare ammo and clipped it onto her strap.

"I'll take this, then." Maki slipped a belt on herself, taking two pistols and putting them in the holsters on both sides of her body.

"You sure that's enough?" Umi questioned her.

"I'm the medic. I'd rather not carry heavy weaponry." She grabbed box labeled 'pistol' ammo and turned to leave the room. "I'll be in the infirmary. Someone come get me when we leave."

"Why do we have swords here?" With all the guns in the room, it surprised Eri to find blades hidden away in the drawers. Honoka shrugged, not knowing either. She was still trying to figure out what weapon she should use. "Ah, well. I'll take one. It's easier than carrying ammunition with me." The strap that her chosen sword was attached to was too large to be used as a belt, so she slung the weapon on her back.

"Rin will take these nya!" Rin said, lifting her hands out of another drawer to show off the black gloves she now wore, whose knuckles were studded with metal. She looked around for somewhere to test the effectiveness of the metal braces, but decided against breaking any walls while they were in the bunker. "Oh, and this. For far away targets." She took a gun from the wall and examined it. "It's ammo looks weird."

"That's a paintball gun, Rin-chan." Hanayo said, reading off the side of the weapon. "Why is it here? Paint isn't dangerous."

"But it sounds fun! I'm keeping it nya!" Rin posed with the weapon, making Hanayo smile at her silly actions.

"I'll take these." The brunette decided, taking a pistol and a flare gun. "One for defense and the other for signalling. I'm not a good shot anyway."

"I'd rather use blades." Nico announced, coming up with a handful of what looked like silver needles. "Look, I can wear this." 'This' turned out to be two belts that overlapped one another as they were worn on different shoulders, with small holes for holding the needles. She threw one at the wall and it stuck in place, quivering. "Yep, I'm going with this."

"I'll take this shotgun then." Nozomi plucked the gun off the wall.

"And I'll use this." Kotori held up a pink rifle with the decal of a white cat on the end. "It looks cute." At the same time, though, the thoughts 'who the hell came up with that as a design for a gun' and 'why the hell is something like that here' ran through the rest of the girls' minds but they decided to stay silent on the matter.

"Ahhh...I still don't know what to use!" Honoka grumbled, unable to make up her mind. Umi placed a calming hand on the ginger's shoulder. "Umi-chan?"

"I don't think you need a weapon." The bluenette said, smiling. "Your leadership is what's important." 'Plus, I get the feeling she'll use up a lot of ammo if she takes anything.'

"But I don't want to lead if I can't protect all of you!" Honoka protested. Umi sighed, rummaged in a drawer, and held a sheathed katana out towards Honoka.

"Use this then." She took the blade, unsheathed it, and stared in amazement at its sleek form.

"Wow...this is...not something I can use to protect you from long range though…" Honoka sheathed the katana, looking disappointed.

"Yes, but most of us have long-range weapons, so we need some close combat fighters." Just a little further and she would have Honoka convinced to use the katana. "You should use it."

"Hm...Okay then. I'll go get Maki-chan, so everyone else wait on the top floor, okay?!" Honoka strapped on the belt that the blade's sheath came with as she ran off to the infirmary.

Maki lifted the small red backpack by its straps, testing its weight. "I can still put more in...so...I'll take this too…" She put several more bottles into the back and, with minor difficulty, zipped it shut. "Carefully…" If she moved the pack too quickly, some of the supplies would get jostled.

"Maki-chan!" Honoka bounded in. Thankfully, the bag was still on the sickbed so it wasn't affected by her surprised jump. Glaring at the ginger did absolutely nothing, so Maki just sighed and pulled the backpack onto her back. "We're all ready to go now!"

"Sure…" She said, eyeing the katana that Honoka now carried. "Why a katana?" She just couldn't come up with a reason for the blade, considering they had little practice with such sharp weapons.

"Umi-chan said I should use it. Come on, let's go! I want to explore the city!" Honoka was bouncing up and down like she was a child about to embark on a field trip. Not that any of them knew what that felt like, considering their childhood in the bunker.

"Okay, okay. Did you tell Yukiho that we're going though?" She sighed again, this time at Honoka's blank expression. "I'll go with you. I think they're at the Range right now."

"Oh! Okay, then we'll go talk to them first!" Honoka walked off with Maki in tow (quite literally, as she was holding onto the younger girl's hand now) to the Range. With the surface opened to them, their normally scheduled lives were no longer as organized. That meant that any person could walk into the Range at any point in the day without getting barred from it. The two fourteen year olds were taking their first shots at the targets positioned at various distances from them. "Yukiho! Arisa-chan! We're going up to the surface to explore! Want anything?!"

"For you to come back safely probably! We don't know what's up there!" Yukiho shouted back-it was always loud in the Range with the girls practicing their aim.

"Okay! Keep practicing and you can join us someday!" Honoka clapped her little sister on the shoulder before dragging Maki back out of the Range and up the spiral staircase to where the rest of her friends were waiting on the topmost floor. "Let's go, everyone!"

This time, she took a different exit, coming out into the city in a different place. They were right next to a large staircase, that led up the hill. Small trees lined the sidewalk, next to the decomposing logs of what Honoka supposed were the trees that lined the place prior to the storm. With no real idea of where to go, she led them up the staircase. A large brick building stood in front of them, covered in moss and vines from the lack of care. "Wow…" Honoka was astounded by the building, the first she had seen that wasn't horribly damaged in some way.

"I wonder what this used to be?" Umi asked aloud, running her hand over a metal gate and looking at the reddish rust come off on her fingers. Honoka started walking over to the entrance she could see, partially hidden by the vines. "Honoka?"

"I want to explore this place, Umi-chan. Think about it. We could use this as an outside base if the inside is good." Honoka unsheathed her katana and swung it at the vines in her way. The vegetation fell to the ground as the ginger put her blade away. Glancing back at the rest of her group, she asked, "Are the rest of you coming?"

There was vegetation growing even in the halls of the building. Faded boards lined the walls opposite the broken windows, some of which were covered in yellowed papers. More of the yellowed papers littered the floor, and Honoka picked one up to examine. "'Tennis Club'...'members wanted'...I think this is a school. Or at least, it used to be."

"They built it pretty well then. To stand a storm that knocked the entire world out of order." Nico commented, walking ahead of the group to a door. The sign above the door read '1-2', but it went mostly ignored as the nine girls entered the classroom. The desks were all blown to the side closest to the door, with the windows on the other side of the room broken. Maki picked her way across the tangle of tables and chairs to look at the torn and ripped apart books that had ended up on the floor. Some had been soaked through from the rain coming through the window during the storm, and were subsequently unreadable.

"These are textbooks. Classic Literature, English, Math…" Maki unzipped her backpack and tried to shove a few of the books into it.

"What's so interesting about them?" Rin asked. The orange-haired girl had crossed over to Maki and took one of the textbooks out of her hand. "...I can't even read this."

"That's because it's in English. You would be able to read a bit if you studied a bit more." There were some books in the bunker library that were written in English with Japanese kanji above the words.

"I don't like reading that much nya...Some of the kanji is hard." Rin admitted, scratching the back of her head.

"More reason to take these then. Maybe it'll help you learn if you had actual books to teach you." Maki zipped up her backpack with more difficulty now before rejoining the rest of the group that had not crossed over the desk barricade. "Alright, where to next?"

"Up the stairs. It looks like there are more floors here." Eri said, pointing at the staircase. The steps creaked as they walked up, finding only more partially opened doors and broken glass. "Looks to be the same. There's another floor up, so I'll go check that out."

"Then I'll go with you." Nozomi followed the blonde up the steps to the third floor of the building. After a few seconds, Nico sprinted after them, not wanting to be left behind by her two roommates.

"We'll go down this hall. Scream if you need us." Maki set off down the hall, closely followed by Rin and Hanayo. Honoka was left with Kotori and Umi; the three looked at each other and then walked down the other hall.

"Hey, doesn't this door look different from the rest? It's not a sliding door." Honoka commented, knocking her fist on the heavy wood doors. With a sound not unlike a great sigh, the doors fell inwards, landing with a soft thud on the carpeted floor.

"Honoka, look at what you did!" Umi scolded.

"It's not my fault! I didn't know they were going to fall!" Honoka retorted, upset at what she thought of as false accusations. Kotori ignored the two's bickering, intrigued by the room itself, which seemed weirdly familiar to her.

She walked towards the wooden desk, touching the cool wood with her fingertips. She traced the edge of the wood as she walked around the desk to the chair. A plaque on the desk, made immobile by the glue that had stuck it there years ago, caught her eye. She leaned closer to read the characters that had faded over time. "Umi-chan, Honoka-chan...I remember what this place is." Tears built up in her eyes. "This is my mother's school. Otonokizaka Academy. She said...that one day...we would come here to attend." Kotori sat down heavily on the leather chair. Looking down into the half-opened drawer of the desk, she spotted the bottom of what looked to be a photograph. She pulled it out to see it better.

The photo floated down onto the floor, landing face-up to show the smiling faces of Kotori with her mother in front of the school's newly painted sign, an event that had taken more than eleven years ago.

* * *

 **How should I end this?**

 **Oh, I know. With more feels. (I tried…)**


	7. Chapter 7

Resta U: Muse will fight to protect their school...even if they don't go to the school in this story. :D

 **Warning: I have like zero experience writing combat scenes.**

 **Aqours gets their first appearance in the story, but it will still be a while before they meet Muse.**

* * *

The girls regrouped on the first floor. They were satisfied with what they had seen so far of the school building and were about to head back to the bunker with the report.

"Oi, ya brats. What'd ya think ya doing, trespassing on OUR territory?" A group of men stood between them and school gate, most of whom were brandishing baseball bats/wooden clubs studded with nails.

"We didn't know this place belonged to anyone now. But if you're talking about who it should belong to, it would be my friend. Her mom was the headmistress of this school." Honoka spoke confidently. They were outnumbered by one person, but their weapons were far superior to the men's. Still, she preferred to avoid bloodshed if she could. That was one of the things her entire group had agreed on before they set out.

"Psh, who cares 'bout that?! Listen here, brat. I'm the leader of this here gang, and if I say it's my territory, it's MY territory!" There was no point reasoning with them, Honoka realized. If it was truly theirs, then she and her friends would have to leave. She reached behind her and squeezed Kotori's hand, apologizing silently for being unable to reclaim the school that had once been her mother's.

"Okay. We're sorry for trespassing. We'll leave now." Honoka started to lead her friends around the group of men, but a club stopped her in her tracks. Staring at the sharp metal points mere centimeters from her face, she half-turned to glance at the man blocking her way. "Is there something else?"

"Ya didn't think we'd let ya leave that easy, did ya? Trespassers must be punished! Boss, can I have my pick of them?!"

"Ah, sure, whatever. Just know this one's mine." Their leader, now that Honoka could pinpoint which one of them he was, jabbed a dirt-covered thumb at Nozomi. "One of ya's gonna have to serve two of us."

"Ooh, I like this one!" One of the shorter men reached out to touch Maki's hair. With movement that only came with years of practice, Maki grabbed the man's arm, wrenching it far away from her. Then with her other hand, she drew one of her pistols and thrust it against the man's throat. He didn't dare move after that.

"Don't touch me, you-" She didn't get to finish her insult as she was backhanded away from her captive by the leader's baseball bat. The pistol flew from her hand as she fell, crashing down on the bricks of the courtyard. While Eri knelt to check on her, Honoka glared at the leader.

"Ya angry, bunker brat?" Now he was teasing her, tapping the underside of her chin with his bat. "Yeah, we know what you are. Bunker brats coddled underground, ya don't know what the surface world's like. Yer lives are ours now, so ya better listen up!" He was forcing her head up with the bat. She knew what he thought of them: nothing more than weak and useless girls that would fall obedient to his desires. And she knew her friends. The only reason they had not all drawn their weapons yet was because they awaited her orders. Fighting would inevitably cause blood to fall, which she had told them to avoid.

"Yes." Honoka managed to say, with the baseball bat pressed against her throat. "It's time to fight!" With a cry, she kicked upwards into the leader's arm, forcing him to relinquish the baseball bat. She ducked and rolled backwards to Maki's side as her friends voiced their outrage. The redhead was coming to, though her eyes were crossed. "Stay down, Maki-chan." She turned back to the fight, unsheathing her katana. Umi and Kotori had retreated to a safer distance where they could snipe from. Eri and Rin were holding the most attention, being close combat fighters. She ran in to help them, her katana held out to the side to trip up whoever she ran by. Nozomi and Hanayo shot whoever went down once in the leg to prevent them from getting up and rejoining the fight.

Honoka spotted the leader of the group pick up Maki's dropped pistol and she shouted, pointing in his direction with her katana. The rest of his group were downed, in various stages of pain, and all with one or more bullets in their legs. He would be the final enemy they would have to defeat to claim their school. The tip of her katana created sparks as she dragged it across the courtyard bricks, determined to have the final blow.

"STOP! Or she's dead!" She would have punched herself in the face if that wasn't the appropriate thing to do at the moment. How had they let him get so close to Maki?! The disgusting man held the girl in a headlock, the dropped pistol aimed at her head. Maki struggled weakly, still recovering from the concussion she had recieved earlier. He dragged her up with him as he stood, gun still pressed against her head, finger ready to pull the trigger. "Ya sniper brats join yer friends in front!" Maki whimpered as he tightened his lock around her throat. Umi and Kotori reluctantly walked around him to meet up with the rest of their friends. Honoka's anger seethed, unable to do anything but stare with Maki held hostage.

Maki's left hand moved slightly, pointing at the holster still on her belt. A pistol still sat within its pocket; Maki tried to unclasp the strap without getting the man's attention, but it was hard for her do. Honoka would need to distract him. She tossed her katana out, glaring at the man. "All right, you win."

"Drop all yer weapons!" The man barked. Honoka glanced at her friends and motioned for them to do as he asked. Their guns and blades joined her own on the brick floor between themselves and their enemy. Maki had managed to get the pistol into her hand. She locked eyes with Honoka. "Heh, stupid brats thinkin' ya get the better of us. But we have no need for any of yas anymore, not after what ya did to us." He took the point of the pistol away from Maki's head and lowered it at Honoka instead.

"Do it." She said, loudly. It threw him off, just as she hoped it would. "Oh, I'm sorry. You thought I was talking to you?" Maki thrust the pistol in her hand up against the man's arm and fired. Shrieking in pain, the man dropped the pistol and released Maki; Honoka ran forward to intercept her before she and the ground had another intimate meeting. The rest of her friends scrambled forward, picking up their weapons and immediately aiming at the man. Honoka pointed her katana, which had been handed to her by Eri after the blonde picked it up for her, in his direction. "Take your men and get out our sight. If you should trespass on OUR school, you will face consequences." The man clutched his bleeding arm and sprinted out the school gate.

With the courtyard now clear of their opposition, Honoka laid Maki back down to let her rest and recover fully. While the redhead rested under the guard of Umi and Rin, Honoka led the rest of her friends around the perimeter of the school to eliminate the possiblity of any other assailants within the area.

The school was now theirs, with no other person on the grounds. Honoka watched as Rin and Nico worked together on a canvas to make their mark visible. Originally, Rin had suggested paintballing the front wall of the school, but Kotori had not allowed them to vandalize her mother's school. So the compromise was to paint their mark onto a canvas they had found within the school.

Their first adventure in the outside world over, the girls returned to the bunker to plan their next one. "I say we head to the ocean next!" Honoka proclaimed, back in the safety of the War Room. Some of the other girls in their bunker were going to clean up the school; their job was to continue exploring. "Look, there's a rail that leads to one of the cities. Um...Nu...Numa…"

"Numazu City." Eri read, looking at the tiny dot on the map Honoka was pointing at. "But how are we going to get there?"

"It's simple! We take a train!"

* * *

"Hah...hah...any luck?"

"No...no water."

"Aahhh...this sucks! Living by the ocean sucks!" Chika shouted at the sea, innocently glittering in the sunset. They, she and her friends, had been searching their town all day in search of fresh water. Their bunker still had some in store, but it would be best if they could find a source of water in the outside world, now that they had been freed from their bunker. Not that any of them actually hated the sea; it was where the majority of their food came from. "We're going to have to call it quits for today…"

"We could try moving more inland." Riko suggested, trying to ease her friend's mood. "There may be more fresh water if we follow the train tracks."

"Good idea, Riko-chan! Okay! We start tomorrow!"

* * *

 **While Muse plans to go to the beach (by train, of all ways), Aqours plans to head inland in search of water.**

 **Please review!**

 **Also...sorry for the shorter chapter. I'll try to make the next one longer.**


	8. Chapter 8

Fedora force: Muse works pretty fast too. Then again, I'm not that good at pacing a story so... On another note, giving the bunker children orders to protect their country probably wasn't the greatest decision of the government. I'm sure neither Muse nor Aqours knows that other bunkers outside their own exist.

Resta U: I would put more focus on Aqours, but I'm hesitant on doing so since they're fairly new characters. I want to make sure I understand their characters before putting too much focus on them. That being said, Muse meets Aqours soon, so they'll probably get a chapter of their own either before or after that.

Fayerjiff: Yes, this story supports HonoMaki and several other pairings. But I'm looking to focus on their survival rather than romantic developments, so it won't be tagged.

Dessert Maniac: 'Shelter girls' was another name I was going to use for them, but 'bunker brats' ended up sounding better. Honoka is kind of like a leader that seems to decide things on a whim, but she can be sensitive when she needs to be. Living in the bunker may have made them unused to the outside world, but that doesn't necessarily mean they're going to listen to what others tell them to do. And again, Honoka pretty much does what she wants, when she wants to.

 **Sore wa Bokutachi no Kiseki-otherwise known as That is Our Miracle-is the main driving force for this chapter. Because it takes a freaking miracle to get trains that have been abandoned for close to a decade to run again.**

 **My knowledge of how electronics work is limited so I hope this chapter gets by...**

* * *

"You said we'd take the train to the beach but...no matter how I look at it...these trains aren't operational, Honoka." Umi said, examining the outside of one such train. It was covered in a layer of grime. "It runs on electricity. We don't have the capacity to produce that yet."

"Sure we do! Our bunker runs on electricity; there must be someway we can power the train!" Honoka peered through one of the broken windows into the train. "Someone boost me; I think I can get inside."

"Watch out for glass." Eri warned as she and Nozomi worked together to lift Honoka through the space. She felt the sharp edges of glass cut into her hands as she used them to prevent her head from hitting the floor of the train. Wriggling a bit, she got her lower half to follow and stood up within the train. "And you get yourself cut anyway."

"It can't be helped! Besides, Maki-chan can disinfect it afterwards." Honoka opened and closed her fingers a few times, getting used to the pain it caused before looking around to see what she could do. The front of the train had controls, but they were covered in dust; no one had touched them in a long time. "We can definitely get this train working if we clean it up and power it!" She shouted through the window.

"Even if we found a way to start it up, how are we going to get enough electricity to move the entire train? Honoka, we're better off just walking there!"

"That'd take too long!" She retorted, looking around once more. "Hey...there's enough room in here for the nine of us. What if we just took the front of the train and left the rest of it behind? It could be like a mobile base!"

"That's actually a pretty good idea." Nozomi looked around herself to see the rest of the group giving her blank stares. "I mean, if we could move the train on the rail, we could expand our reach beyond just the city."

"But we still need to find a way to generate electricity for it. It's not like generators exist, and this train will take a lot of work to get it moving again." Eri reminded her. Honoka stood on the control panel of the train to get out through the window again and rejoin her friends.

"Why don't we go back to the bunker for now? I want to take a look at something."

"Oh, you're back from your beach trip already? That was fast." The girls had bumped into Tsubasa's group on their way back to the bunker entrance. They were carrying a deer carcass between the three of them; a fairly large buck that would give them enough meat for a couple of days, if eaten sparingly.

"We're still looking for a way to get there." Umi explained. "Looks like you've been busy."

"Yep. These animals around here have grown up without human interaction. Even so, it's not easy to bring one of them down." Tsubasa gestured at the deer she was partially carrying. "This one in particular was hard to track down." A-Rise, as they preferred to be called when referring to the trio, had taken it upon themselves to become hunters. On their exploration of the city, they had discovered animals, most of which didn't run away when they came close. So the natural thing to follow was for them to hunt down the easy meat and provide it for the bunker. The girls had not had fresh meat since they were young. "We're just about to bring it to the kitchens to prepare. Maybe you should spend the night in the base and enjoy it."

"Maybe." Honoka and Tsubasa fist-bumped before the two groups split up again. Muse, as they had decided their own group name, spent more time in the Academy they conquered.

"We're not going back in yet?" Hanayo asked, staring after A-Rise with hungry eyes.

"Nope. I want to see the top of the bunker. We haven't seen that yet." Honoka responded. The portion of the bunker that was above ground was smooth and dome-shaped, but not steep enough that the girls couldn't scale it. "Look!" Solar panels lined the top of the dome, placed into indents on the dome surface so that they wouldn't get wiped away by the storm. "We can move one of these to the train and power it from the sun just like our base has been powered!"

"But that seems hard. It's wired to the base, and we don't know how to move one." Umi said, even though she looked at the base of the panel. "Plus, we don't know what side effect it could have on the bunker."

"We can go do some research." Maki suggested. "We have the library here, and in the school too."

"Okay, let's go with that. Who wants to go to the school?" Maki, Umi, and Eri raised their hands. "Then the rest of us will stay here tonight." Hanayo looked like she was going to drool at the thought of having deer for dinner, so Honoka bid the school team farewell and led her group down into the bunker.

* * *

"I would suggest using solar panels to power the train, but ours are all busted." You sighed as she watched Chika try and figure out what she believed to be a pointless plan. There had been a few blue spots on the map they found in the War Room, but that didn't mean that they'd find water there. Yet, Chika wanted to try and head inland via train.

"We've managed to repower our bunker by starting up the hydro plant nearby though." Riko pointed out, referring to a small facility they had discovered by accident. Fortunately for them, the majority of the equipment to run the plant was untouched. After a few attempts, they-Aqours-had gotten it to start working again.

"I got it! We just need to charge the train with electricity from the plant then!" Chika shouted cheerfully.

"There are wires running in the rail. It could be worth trying." Dia said, appearing to be deep in thought. "And there were plenty of switches in the hydro plant we found. One of them could be connected to this train station."

"So it's going to be trial-and-error until we find it, right? Onee-chan?" Dia nodded in response to Ruby's question.

"Then it won't be long until we can go inland!" Chika bounded into the air, clearly pleased now that they had a plan to go with. You sighed again. None of them were considering the possibility that the power connection wouldn't go through after years of disuse, but then again, it wasn't like she was going to be the one to bring it up. She'd keep her mouth shut and hope that a miracle happened.

* * *

"Okay, remove that screw." Maki instructed Rin. The redhead was reading directly out of a book while the other girl obeyed her order. Hanayo waited below at the base of the dome with a dirty wagon she had found while wandering around in boredom. The rest of Muse was at the train station, preparing the train to accept the solar panel as its new source of power.

"Do I just pull the wires out?!" Rin shouted at Maki, tilting her head to look at the tangled lines below the solar panel.

"Yeah! But carefully; we don't want it to get damaged!" Maki tossed her book down to Hanayo; the instructions weren't needed with the solar panel they had chosen most of the way out already. Rin reached her hand down into the hole the wires were in to pull them out. With some difficulty, the two girls half-walked, half-slid down the dome with their electronic prize. They lowered the panel onto the wagon, making sure that none of the wires were trailing outside the plastic vehicle.

Honoka wiped her brow from the heat of her metal cutter tool. Cutting a square out of the top of the train was proving harder than she had expected, but it was the last thing they had to do to the train so that they could install the solar panel. Umi and Eri had already dug around inside the control panel to figure out what they would need to connect the panel to, and Nozomi and Nico were undoing the connection between the head of the train and the rest of the cars. With a final push, the square of metal fell into the interior of the train. Umi and Kotori immediately went in to remove the piece, as well as clean up what glass was still on the floor. Most of the unwanted trash was dumped below the rails, with no other place to put them.

"We're here!" Maki announced as she and her two roommates ran in with the solar panel on the wagon. The panel was installed without much difficulty, to their surprise. Honoka tried to start up the control panel. Nothing happened.

"Well, we kind of figured that would happen." Umi remarked dryly, looking at the dead-but now clean-control panel. Honoka kicked the bottom of the structure the control panel was mounted on and tried to start up the train again. With a noise not unlike the groaning of a half-awake person, the train came to life. She opened the door and let the rest of her friends in.

"And you were saying, Umi-chan?" Umi shook her head, dumbfounded by the ease that they were able to start up a train. "Now, to the beach!" Slowly, the train inched forward, out of the train station. It picked up speed as the sun beat down on the solar panel they had installed, and Muse was on their way.

* * *

"It's working, it's working! Riko-chan, it's working!" Chika hugged Riko before hopping through the now open doors of the train. Looking at the colorful control panel below her fingertips, her excitement made it nearly impossible for her to wait for the rest of her friends to return from the hydro plant. They were on their way inland, at last!

* * *

 **With Muse heading from Tokyo to Numazu via train, and Aqours traveling in the opposite direction, what would happen when they meet each other on the railway?**

 **Yes, I really did just write that eighteen teenage girls that have spent the majority of their life underground figured out how to power trains from two completely different power sources. I'm sorry if that seems too far-fetched to believe.**

 **Other than that, please review! :D**


	9. Chapter 9

Fayerjiff: This was intended to be a HonoMaki story, but when thinking about it, having the romance be a main plot of the story didn't make sense. There will be pairings, because I can't avoid them completely, but they'll just be in the background of all the main action.

AnimeGrim: Riko is in the shelter with Aqours instead of Muse for the same reason Eri is in Japan instead of Russia. Her family went on vacation, even with the warning of the storm looming, and had to leave her in that shelter for her safety. (Or in all honesty, she had to be put with Aqours because they wouldn't be Aqours without her.)

Instajolteon: I'm doing my best to keep to my schedule of an update every 2~3 days. But sometimes things get in the way (such as math tests...ugh…), so please understand if a chapter is a day late. :)

Resta U: I'm not sure how deer survived the storm, or how the other people Muse found did either. I just lack the creativity to create new species, or any explanation, so I apologize for that. I still need to get a better understanding of the characters in Sunshine besides the second years-the first years I don't feel confident in writing besides Ruby and I can only kinda do Dia out of the third years-before I write anything too detailed about them.

chi2lyn: The world never needs to worry with school idols running the next generation. As funny as it would be to have their trains crash into each other, there would be way too many injuries if I want to keep it realistic. (What am I even talking about? Realism? They figured out how to use weapons on their own, know how to apply medication without any instruction, and restarted trains that have been in disuse for a decade. Totally realistic.)

* * *

"Honoka, I don't mean to alarm you, but there is another train headed right for us!" Honoka sprung into action, nearly tripping over the control panel. If she had, she would have ended outside the train, which really wasn't a good position to be in. Eri caught her, anchoring her to the train floor until Honoka regained her balance. They had been traveling for quite a while with nothing to do so she had been hanging out the back of the train, holding only onto the door. But there was no mistaking it, a grime-covered train was headed right for them.

"Stop the train!" Ruby cried, cowering in the back of the train car. Chika looked at the flashing buttons.

"Which one do I push?!"

"Just press the red one!" Umi shouted, reaching past Honoka to slam her palm down onto the button. There was a loud screeching noise as the brakes were applied on both trains.

"We're still going to crash!"

"Look out!" The rest of the girls dove for cover, or what little cover there was in the small space. Only Honoka and Chika stood their ground, staring out of the front window at the other girl operating the train in front of them. A shudder ran through the car as the trains came to a stop mere centimeters from each other.

"Honoka, where are you going?" Umi asked as their leader slid the door on the side of the train open. She looked down at the ground, ignoring Umi's question. There would be a short drop, but she would be able to make it.

Chika backed up to the other side of the train from the door. With a running start, she leapt from the train amidst shocked cries from her friends. She hit the ground and immediately went into a somersault to lessen the impact the landing had on her legs. Standing up, she turned to see that the girl she had seen through the window of the other train had had the same idea she did.

Honoka's hand rested on the hilt of her katana as she stared quietly at the other girl. They were around the same height-and probably the same age-but after their run-in with other survivors at the school, Honoka didn't want to risk being taken by surprise.

Chika fingered the sub-machine gun that was strapped to her back, waiting for the other girl to make the first move. She would be at a disadvantage if she took too long to bring the weapon into her hands, especially if the other girl decided to make the fight close-combat. They weren't the first survivors outside their bunker that she had met, though they were the first with weaponry on equal terms with her own.

Honoka glanced up at the other train. The other girl's friends, she assumed, were already aiming at her through the window and the open doors. Charging her would not be an option; she would be killed if she so much as made a move to get close.

Chika saw that the other girl was looking upwards and did the same. Most of that girl's friends, she supposed, were aiming at her friends. Only two of them were aiming their guns at her.

The silent standoff continued for a few minutes, with Honoka and Chika eyeing each other warily and their friends still in the trains, aiming their weapons at each other. There must be a better way to end their standoff than breaking out into a fight.

"So...where are you from?" Chika blinked, not expecting a question. The other girl had taken her hand off of the katana for the time being, though she could see that her body was still tensed up. Any sign of danger and the other girl would react to it. She supposed she could play nice for now.

"Numazu City. Where are you from?" Numazu City...wasn't that the place that she and her friends were headed to? The girls on the other train obviously came from a bunker, judging by their appearance and their weapons; perhaps they weren't the only group to have survived by living underground.

"Tokyo. My name is Kousaka Honoka. What's yours?" Another city, with another bunker? The possiblitiy was there. The train came from father inland, where Chika and her friends were headed. If they could work together, then they would be able to get the fresh water that their bunker needed.

"Takami Chika." Silence fell once again as the conversation, that had started awkwardly, ended on another awkward note. There really was nothing else Honoka could think of to ask Chika, to continue their conversation. "How do you write your name? What kanji do you use?" Glad she didn't have to come up with another topic, she watched as Chika neared her.

Honoka did nothing as Chika approached, though movement from the train above them alerted her to the fact that more guns were being aimed at her now. She lifted both her hands to show that she wouldn't try to do anything at such close quarters.

When Chika came near, Honoka unsheathed her katana, as she had nothing else she could use to scribble her name onto the dirt below. She was not aiming at Chika, keeping the tip of the blade close to the ground. The unmistakable sound of a gunshot was heard as Honoka started on the first stroke of her name and the blade jumped out of her hand as the bullet pierced her arm.

"Don't hit anyone!" Umi shouted, aiming her rifle at the other train. She purposely missed, the bullet ricocheting off the metal ceiling. It had the effect she wanted; the girls dove.

"They shot at Honoka!" Maki retorted, furious. "Can't I just graze one?!"

"No, Honoka's orders are to not cause unnecessary bloodshed." Eri said calmly, taking the redhead away from the front of the train and pinning her arms so she would not be able to fire her pistols. Maki huffed, unhappy, but didn't fight against Eri.

Chika stared, horrified, at Honoka as the ginger bent down to pick up her dropped katana. The girl's face was contorted with pain but she sheathed her weapon. "I'm sorry, I didn't think my friends would-"

"Just go. Take your friends-get away before mine get the idea that you're our enemies. And don't come back." Honoka shoved Chika away from her, pushing her towards the train she had come from. The other teenager ran back to her train and climbed in with the aid of her friends. The door slammed shut behind her and the train holding the girls from Numazu City retreated, heading back in the direction they came. Honoka looked at her arm; blood was still oozing from a spot just below her shoulder. She was going to need help getting back into the train.

"Okay, which one of you did it?" Chika asked, now that they were on their way back to the bunker. "Which one of you shot her?"

"I-I'm sorry...I overreacted-I thought you were in danger so…" Ruby looked down, apologetically.

"In Ruby's defense, that girl did pull out her weapon and you didn't." Dia said, covering for her younger sister immediately.

"I asked her to show me how her name was written. She wasn't even planning to attack me." Chika sighed, sitting down on the floor of the train. "We probably could have become friends with them. But now they probably hate us."

"If I ever see them again, I'll make them pay for hurting you." Maki grumbled. The floor of the train was not the ideal location for taking care of Honoka's bullet wound, but given their location far from their bunker, they didn't have much choice. She had already extracted the metal shell and was bandaging the wound.

"No bloodshed." Honoka warned her. The redhead rolled her eyes and put the extra bandage away in her pack. She sat up, testing her arm. It still hurt, and would probably continue to do so until it healed enough. "Where are we?"

"Close to the station. You need to rest for a while. No more adventures until that wound heals." Honoka pouted at Umi's orders. Everyone knew how much Honoka hated sitting still now that the entire world had been opened to them. "Where do you want to go anyway? We'll plan that out once you've healed."

"Isn't it obvious? We still didn't make it to the beach! To Numazu City!"

"We'll run into them again! They came from that city!"

"No worries! They didn't seem like bad people, and it's not like we'd go for very long without getting injured. Numazu City is our destination and that's that!"

* * *

 **I made Ruby shoot Honoka. I'm sorry.**


	10. Chapter 10

chi2lyn: I just get the feeling that if Chika and Honoka met that they'd probably just talk about the strangest of topics rather than anything related to their current situation. It might have gone into a talk about the quality of food if they had continued uninterupted.

Fayerjiff: I'll be doing my best to meet your expectations. :D

Instajolteon: Tbh, this is my first time udpating on a schedule. I usually update when I feel like it but I'm going to try hard to keep to the schedule I set for myself. I think I'm doing fine so far. :D As for the trains, Muse went back to Tokyo and Aqours went back to Numazu, so they didn't get in each other's way.

Resta U: Thank you! :D

AshuraX: I wanted to create some tension between the groups, but having Aqours shoot Honoka without reason made no sense. So Honoka used her sword. Also because Honoka probably wouldn't think to use her finger to write the kanji. Chika doesn't have much reason to be amazed by meeting Honoka in a AU with no school idols. Wouldn't DIa be the fangirl though?

WhiteBeaner: I needed one of them to shoot Honoka, and I picked Ruby because of her nervous nature. (based on what I've seen so far in the anime, anyway) She felt like the type to panic and pull the trigger in that situation, so I went with her.

Dessert Maniac: I didn't do any research on bullet wounds prior to writing that scene, which explains Honoka's lack of pain and the time frame laid out for her to heal. I tried to fix that in this chapter, a little bit. On the same subject, I did do more research for this chapter's main injury (though I won't spoil any more than that in the review responses!)

 **Aqours and Muse are becoming more and more involved with each other as the story progresses. I was originally going to have them fight more against each other, but I feel like having the two groups work together makes more sense. With that reasoning, this chapter was written.**

 **I'm sorry in advance.**

 **Warning: There is hand-holding in this chapter. Reader discretion is advised. :3**

* * *

"Alright, here we go!" Honoka started the train's engines once more. It roared to life; power had been entering it through their hastily installed solar panel on their roof for the week of rest that she had been forced to endure. Her wound was far from healed; Maki was still changing the bandage on a daily basis, but Honoka could not stand sitting around for much longer. They had finally made contact with another bunker and she wanted to know more about their experiences.

"Okay, okay. Now sit down. It'll be a while before we get to Numazu City." Maki pushed gently at Honoka's back until the ginger left the control panel and took a seat. Umi assumed control at the front of the train, keeping an eye out for any oncoming traffic. It had taken them around an hour, give or take, to reach the point where they had run into the Numazu City bunker girls, and they would be in for a long wait to reach the actual city.

"Awawa! What should we do?!" Ruby was panicking as Chika and You lifted Riko into the train. Dia tugged the unconscious girl aboard, passing her to Kanan and Mari.

"We have to try the train line again! I can't let Riko-chan die like this! Get on!" The three youngest scrambled aboard the train, with Chika being the last to ascend. The door slid shut as she slammed the control panel. "Come on, work please!" With a groan, the train started to move.

 _Aqours had returned to their bunker in defeat after their run-in with the Tokyo bunker girls on the train rails only to find it completely dark inside. The few girls remaining there were huddled in their rooms, only coming close to tell of what happened to their bunker's electricity._

" _It was cut off? How?" Chika gasped in shock as she and her friends learned of the news._

" _We don't know. The lights started flickering, and the program warned us that it was shutting down, just like when we first figured out the solar panels were broken." The girl said. "Then they came. Other survivors, from bunkers all around the city. They claimed that we were in their way of rebuilding the city."_

" _I thought the only other survivors were those girls." You commented, referring to the other train from Tokyo._

" _Apparently they had been living under their homes all these years. Only the rich could have afforded to build those bunkers for their own use." The girl continued, a bitter tone entering her voice. "Almost everybody ran away, because they were going to kill whoever stayed. Except us; we stayed to tell you in case you came back."_

" _And what are you going to do now?" Dia asked._

" _Leave this place once it gets dark outside. There is nothing left here for any of us." The girl turned away after that, refusing to talk anymore with them._

 _Chika and her friends were discussing where they should go, now that their bunker was completely shut down and all of their fellow bunker girls were gone. She would have suggested going to Tokyo, but with the recent incident of Ruby shooting Honoka, it wasn't at the top of her list. Poring over a map with only the light of a target from one of their guns, they were ambushed by the other survivors. It wasn't a matter of whether they could fight or not; they just had to flee from the cramped area. "The plant! Meet at the plant!" She shouted, fleeing into the darkness from the bunker exit. With luck, her friends would make it to the power plant._

 _She was the first to arrive, her chest heaving. She glanced behind her. There was no sound, no movement in the dark that indicated she was still being followed. She walked into the hydro-electricity plant, finding that the line they had connected to their bunker had been severed somewhere between the plant and their shelter. "Not that it matters anymore…" Chika turned the plant's lights on and walked back outside as her friends started to straggle in, panting and exhausted from evading their pursuers. "Any injuries?" A quick glance over all of them showed her that she hadn't needed to ask. Most of them had gotten away with scrapes. Dia had gotten clipped by some weapon; blood was flowing from her forehead, forcing her to keep one eye closed. Riko's injury was more concerning; the knife she had been stabbed with was still embedded in her leg. Chika could only wonder how the other girl kept moving with such a painful injury._

That had been several days ago. With cleaning and bandages, Dia's forehead wound had begun to close, healing up. Riko, on the other hand, seemed to only be getting worse. At first, the fever that had sprung up was dismissed as part of the healing process, mainly by Riko herself. Now, as Chika looked back in the train at her, the girl was in a state of fevered unconscious. She had not woken up this morning and as Kanan changed her bandage, she could see angry red lines starting to spread from the injury. "Riko-chan…" If their bunker was still operational, everything would have been fine as they could have used their infirmary to dictate what their injured friend needed. Their only hope of saving their friend now rested in their ability to reach Tokyo's bunker.

Mari kneeled on the floor next to Riko, changing the almost dry towel for a new wet one, trying to lower the girl's temperature. Riko's breath came in short, quick gasps, which the blonde was sure was not a good sign. But without any knowledge on what else to do, she could only continue changing the towels until they made it to their destination.

"They're back!" Kotori announced, having taken over for Umi at the control panel. "The train from the other city!"

"What?!" Maki nearly shoved Kotori back as the redhead stared out the front window. "...wait, what are they doing?"

"Keep waving it!" Chika urged Ruby and Hanamaru as the two girls waved two towels out the window. She hoped that their message would get across to the Tokyo train, for it was unmistakably them. As the two girls continued to wave frantically, Chika slowed the train down to a stop.

"Slow down!" Honoka ordered, already heading for the door of the train. "They're not going to fight!"

"You don't know that!" Umi caught Honoka by her injured shoulder, making the ginger hiss in pain. "They shot you last time!"

"So what?! Look at them! They're waving the colors of surrender! I'm going to talk to them, at least!" The train stopped and Honoka hopped down from the train, ignoring any additional protest.

Chika hopped down from her own train, walking briskly to meet Honoka in the middle of the space. "We need help." She said, her voice strangely calm for the fear she had on the inside. "My friend might be dying. Do you have a medic?"

"Yes." Honoka turned back to her own train. "Maki-chan, bring the medical supplies!" Chika watched her as she ran back to her friends, nearly dragging the redhaired girl out of the train by her clothes. "When I say I need the medical supplies, you don't say that you don't want to help them!"

"I'm sorry, okay?!" Honoka nodded at Chika, releasing her hold on Maki. The redhead sighed and looked reluctant to help. "Lead the way…"

Chika and Honoka stood near the exit to the train as Maki examined Riko. She had kicked the rest of her friends out of the train, wanting more space to herself and her patient. "How is she?" Chika asked, fearing the worst at the worry lines on Maki's face.

"You're right about one thing. She will die if we don't do anything." Chika's stomach felt like it was trying to drop out of her body. "I can't do anything here either. The infection is in her bloodstream. Honoka, we need to get her to a bunker if we want to save her."

"How come you didn't go back to your bunker?" Honoka asked Chika as the train started to move. She had relayed the message to Umi to take what members of Aqours she could aboard and head back towards Tokyo. She had stayed on the Numazu City train with Maki to ensure that her friends wouldn't try anything.

To Chika's surprise, the ginger's expression didn't change much as she relayed the situation at Numazu City over to her. "D-Did you have that problem too?"

"We've had no trouble with power. And the only survivors we ran into we chased off." Chika stared at Honoka with amazement; this girl was far superior to herself in terms of leadership if she had the right to make such a judgement at the moment. "Ah, but there goes my hopes of a beach trip. Guess we'd have to find another beach city."

"That's not a priority, Honoka!" Maki scolded from where she still knelt at Riko's side.

"I know, I know~" Honoka said, laughing. A leader that was capable of joking around as well as making tough decisions-Chika would have to learn from her example. "So...everyone in your bunker is gone?"

"I don't know where they went. The bunker was invaded while we were hoping to reach Tokyo." Honoka nodded, secretly glad that her own bunker didn't undergo that same situation. Chika was strong for holding up despite the loss of her shelter and the possible death of one of her close friends; Honoka admired her for that. She didn't think she would be able to be so calm if she were in Chika's position. "As far as I know, we Aqours are the only members left of the bunker. We have nowhere to go."

"Maki-chan-"

"I already know what you want." Maki sighed again. "Just keep it to yourself until I can get Riko stabilized in the infirmary." Chika looked between the two Tokyo girls, a bit confused.

"Well, then, Chika-chan." Honoka clapped her on the shoulder, grinning. "Welcome to the Tokyo bunker! You'll be one of us now!"

"Didn't I say keep it to yourself until we got back?!" Chika stayed quiet as Maki snapped at Honoka. The news sank in and, even though Riko's life was still in danger, she couldn't stop a giddy feeling from rising in her chest. She and her friends would have a place to stay!

Chika followed Honoka to the Tokyo Bunker after getting the rest of Aqours settled at the school that had been claimed by Muse. Riko had been rushed to the bunker by Umi and Eri at Maki's orders, and she was now going down to see how her close friend was doing.

A machine beeped as it counted Riko's pulse. Tubes had been connected to the girl's arm, entering into her veins. "It's blood poisoning." Maki reported as Chika and Honoka walked in. "An infection in her bloodstream. I'm supposed to give her liquids and medicine as support until her body can fight it off. You're lucky, you know." She had turned to her patient and pulled Riko's ear at the last sentence.

"Ow, ow! I know…" Riko smiled apologetically at Chika, propped up on the infirmary bed by pillows. "I heard you talked Tokyo bunker into allowing us to stay?"

"Um, well, yeah. Or rather, Honoka-san decided it was okay and commanded everyone else to let us stay. Everyone's been nice to us, though!" Chika grasped Riko's hands in her own, careful not to jostle the fluid tube too much. "So get better soon. Everyone in Aqours is waiting for you."

Riko nodded, gripping Chika's hands tightly to show her determination. "Yeah. I will."

"Okay, that's enough." Maki separated the two of them. "It seems Honoka wants to show you around the place, Chika, and I need to watch my patient so she can recover from her life-threatening infection." Riko waved slightly as Chika was dragged out of the infirmary by Honoka.

"Living in Tokyo, you have to know your way around. Because you'll be helping us now, I need you to tell me what your group is capable of doing." Honoka said, looking stern for a change. Chika felt like a student being chastised, standing on the other side of the table from where Honoka sat.

"Well, we kind of went off on our own back at Numazu, but we were searching for fresh water when we first ran into you. So...is that helpful?" Chika didn't know what Honoka was looking for in her answer but the ginger nodded.

"Okay then. It's settled. Muse and Aqours will be working together from now on to claim more territory for Tokyo." It sounded more like that was Honoka's plan all along, but Chika went along with it anyway. She was getting a lot more trust than she had expected, considering that her friend was the one responsible for the bandage still on Honoka's shoulder. "Looking forward to working with you, Chika-chan!"

* * *

 **I gave a little bit of life at the Numazu Bunker during this chapter to explain why Aqours was in such a pinch. More on their life prior to escaping their bunker will be written once Kanan gets more screentime. Everyone else in Aqours I can write since I understand the basics of their personalities but I know next to nothing about Kanan. GIVE KANAN MORE SCREENTIME!**

 **(Though my current favs are Riko, Dia, and Hanamaru.)**


	11. Chapter 11

chi2lyn: Let's put more emphasis on 'almost'. She's still very much alive.

AshuraX: Chika and Honoka are not the same age. I almost made that mistake, but then remembered Riko was supposed to be the same age as Maki and thus adjusted all of Aqours's ages accordingly. Though with the newest Sunshine episode...I'm not sure what the timeline is…

Resta U: Honoka would probably just drag them along on her plans just as she does the rest of Muse.

Revengermajestyliberator: I've never played Fallout but I heard it's an apocalypse survival game (or something…? I'm not sure.) They won't be too harsh on Ruby, though some of them will hold a grudge for a while.

iamrailgun.20: Sorry for the lack of HonoMaki in this chapter.

Dessert Maniac: Honoka's leadership consists mostly of a "I'll do whatever I want" attitude and sometimes "Let's do what helps the most people" attitude. The Aqours bunker actually lost power a few years prior to the story, so they were let out into the world sooner. They did reboot the bunker with the hydroelectric plant, but the programming to keep them in and educate them was terminated. As such, the girls in that bunker did not develop as close a bond as the girls in the Muse bunker did. More details later, when the Aqours chapter comes out.

 **I really don't understand what the timeline is in Sunshine. I mean, I thought that Riko and the Muse first years were in the same class, but when Maru was reading the magazine, it said 'Muse Fifth Anniversary Edition'? Someone explain this to me, because I feel like I'm messing up their ages now. Is there five years between the events in Love Live and in Sunshine? What do you think?**

* * *

"So…why are we out here again?" You whispered into Chika's ear. The other girl shrugged, not knowing the reason why either. Even Riko had been brought out, despite Maki's protests that she wasn't ready for any physical activities.

"Today we're going to be playing a survival game!" Honoka announced as Umi and Eri dutifully handed out guns that looked very similar to the ones they could find in the target range within the bunker. Upon closer examination, Chika realized that they were the guns from the target range. "I took these from the Range-they'll hurt but it won't penetrate the skin. There are three stations somewhere in the city. One has nine talismans, the second has five talismans, and the third has three. Your goal is to collect all three talismans without getting hit by another team."

"Wait, there are teams?" Chika asked, voicing the question that seemed to be on everyone's mind.

"Yes. Two members to a team, nine teams in total. One Muse with one Aqours. Oh, and I have a map of the city for each team!" Honoka handed out the folded pieces of paper. Chika opened hers. Three circles were drawn onto the map, along with the kanji for 'school' next to a building. "The circles are the approximate locations of the stations; you'd still have to find them within that area. If you get lost, make your way back to the school-it's marked on the map too. Everyone understand?"

"Who's running the stations anyway?" Umi asked, folding up her map.

"I had A-Rise do it. Now the teams are-"

"At least Honoka had the sense to put me with you." Maki sighed as she trekked through the rubble with her partner during the game. "Are you sure you're doing okay?"

"Yes, I'm fine." Riko was having trouble keeping up any pace faster than a walk, but it wasn't as if Maki was trying to win. To her, she was just getting dragged along into Honoka's pace once more. "Thank you."

"For what? Oh, you mean saving your life? I didn't get any sleep last night because of you." Riko's fever had come back during the night, while the girl was unconscious, and Maki hadn't been able to sleep due to her sense of duty. She had fought Riko's fever through the entire night, and just when it finally went back down to a normal temperature and she thought she would get some time to sleep, Honoka burst in with a desire to play her 'survival game'. "Speaking of which, let me check. Sit down." Riko obeyed, tilting her head upwards and closing her eyes. Maki pressed her forehead to her partner's; the lack of a portable thermometer for her to carry outside the bunker meant that she would have to rely on less reliable methods of telling temperature. "I don't feel a fever."

"It's because of the medicine you gave me this morning before we left." Riko was quite grateful to Maki for taking care of her, even if the redhead was grumpy sometimes.

"Even so, tell me if you start to get tired or if your leg aches. We can even rest here for a little bit." Maki opened her map, looking for their current location. The map didn't help much, as it still showed buildings that were standing and had the names of the streets printed on it, though all the streets the two of them had traveled through no longer had names.

"No, let's keep going…" Rin looked back at her partner, who was already out of breath from their initial sprint to the closest station.

"It's fine if we rest a bit! It's not good if you push yourself too hard!" Hanamaru bit her lower lip, not wanting to be a burden. But she couldn't deny the fact that just trying to keep up with Rin on the run was hard for her. The other girl didn't even look winded; was she really just that weak?

"We're almost there, right? On the map." It looked to her that their target was just a couple streets away.

"Yes, but some of these streets, like this one-" Rin pointed. "-and this one, we can't go through. There's so much broken stuff that it blocks the entire street. We'd have to go around, and then find the station in the circle area nya. Can you do it?" Hanamaru looked at the map once more, calculating what route they would have to take to avoid the blocked off streets, and realized that she would have to take a breather.

"Sorry about this." Eri ignored her, focusing more on bandaging the reopened wound. It was lucky, really, that Maki forced all the teams to take basic first aid kits before they split up. "If I had watched out.."

"Stop talking. You're making it harder for me." Dia fell silent. Eri fiddled with the bandage a little bit longer, then stepped back to see her work. It looked like the other girl was wearing a headband, with the white strips of fabric stretching over her forehead wound. "You took a nasty fall."

"Yes…" The two of them had attempted to climb a wall of rubble that blocked off the streets. Dia lost her footing on the way up, and Eri had been unable to catch her in time. Thanks to that, her forehead injury had opened up anew to pour blood over her right eye. Already the bandage was starting to turn brown from it. "I'm sorry…"

"Don't worry about it. I shouldn't have suggested climbing up to begin with." Eri consulted her map while Dia tested to see if the bandage would prevent any more blood from flowing onto her face. "Looks like we'll have to backtrack and go around."

"No, I want to try one more time." Nico sighed, just wanting to get the game over with.

"Suit yourself. Let me know how it goes." She took a seat on the flat side of a piece of rubble and watched as Yoshiko, or Yohane, whatever her name was, tried once more to climb over the blockage. She had already slipped and fell once before, and had the bandaged legs to show for it. While she waited for her partner to fail again, Nico consulted her map. "Wait, Yoshiko!"

"It's Yohane! Or fallen angel!" Yohane snapped, nearly losing her grip on the wall of rubble to retort.

"Whatever! You'd be going the wrong way if you keep going! Get back down here!" Nico stood at the base of the rubble as Yohane slid down the wall to rejoin her.

"What? I thought you said that we had to get over the wall!" Nico scowled; it wasn't like Yohane had done anything besides listen to her orders.

"I was looking at the map upside down." Nozomi looked out over the grassy plain before them.

"No wonder we ended up here. The city is behind us, isn't it?" Mari nodded silently. The two girls turned as one and headed back to the city. "I was beginning to wonder why Honoka-chan put a station so far away from the bunker."

"Does she do these sorts of things often?" Hanayo hadn't expected a question after walking in silence for so long.

"Honoka-chan likes to have fun, but I'm sure it's so we at least know our way around this city." Ruby nodded, going quiet once more. "Um, listen, I don't blame you or hate you or anything."

"Eh?"

"How do I say this…" Hanayo wasn't used to cheering others up and she wondered what she should say next. If Eri or Umi was in her position, they would surely say something cool. "You shot Honoka-chan, but I can forgive that. I mean, it's not like we weren't prepared to fire back. So...some of us might be a little..irritated, although Maki-chan's always like that, but we won't hold it against you. You don't have to be scared."

"Hanayo-san…" It felt like a heavy weight had been lifted off her chest. She hadn't been aware how much the guilt had been weighing down on her until now.

"But...I think we're lost." Umi admitted to Kanan. They kept ending up in the same blockage over and over again. It wasn't hard to tell, as there was a red splotch on the rubble that looked very similar to a blood puddle.

"We have been walking in circles for quite a while, Umi-san." Kanan agreed, stepping closer to Umi to look at the map. "Look, we should have turned here."

"Why didn't you tell me sooner?" The girls backtracked to where Kanan had suggested they should turn off.

"It was quite fun watching you." Umi grumbled, making the turn onto the street they needed to travel on.

"I thought you said you had no idea where to go." Honoka shook her head at her partner's naive way of thinking.

"I made up the game. Did you honestly think I wouldn't know where A-Rise are stationed?" They had already picked up the talisman from the station with nine such objects and were on their way to the second one.

"But isn't that cheating?" Chika asked, trailing after Honoka as they picked their path across the building lying on its side.

"There's enough for two other teams to win. Besides, we might get picked off if someone finds us." There was that other part of their survival game. Chika had forgotten about their weapons.

"Is it safe to be out in the open like this?"

"Shh...you never know if someone's nearby." Kotori silenced her partner as she peered down at the empty streets. Any movement and she would be able to hit them from where she knelt on the rooftop of a collapsed building.

"But no one would be able to hear us anyway! This is boring, sitting up here. I thought we'd be walking around to find these things, not sitting around and waiting for someone to steal from!" You protested.

"Tell you what, you stay quiet and help me, and I'll get Honoka-chan to fix the pool at school."

"...I'm in."

* * *

 **Short recap of the situation:**

 **-Honoka decides to organize a game and gets everyone in Muse and Aqours to participate.**

 **-Maki and Riko are moving slowly to account for Riko's infection. Maki might head back to the bunker instead of finishing the game.**

 **-Rin and Hanamaru are taking a short break. They're close (?) to the first station.**

 **-Dia is bleeding again. Also, Eri seems to be lost.**

 **-Nico and Yohane are heading in the right direction. To one of the stations. Not sure which one they're going to yet.**

 **-Mari and Nozomi made it back into the city without too much trouble.**

 **-Hanayo and Ruby are somewhere. They might also be lost.**

 **-Umi was most definitely lost. Kanan seems to be having fun though.**

 **-Honoka cheated by already knowing where the stations are.**

 **-Kotori decided to take talismans from those that already have them. You wants to go swimming.**


	12. Chapter 12

Dessert Maniac: The flow in the story should be better now. I didn't differentiate between characters since I thought it looked choppy when it just followed each bit of dialogue with "she said", but I understand it looked confusing. I'll try to make it better. I'm not sure what Honoka's intention was of playing the game to begin with, though we can say that she probably acted for multiple reasons.

Instajolteon: I just paired them based on how similar they were. I was going to pair Hanamaru with someone else, but after that episode, she could be paired with no one else but Rin from Muse. It just had to be that way.

Resta U: Hopefully this chapter picks up in the action department. :D

Iamrailgun.20: True. I'm writing this and I still have no clue what's going on in Honoka's mind.

SnowIllusionz: The survival game was just a random thought. I was going to focus more on Honoka and Chika last chapter, but that wouldn't be fair to all of the other characters. So, the survival game. There aren't any plans for other characters beyond the ones already introduced to appear, though if any do appear, they'll be original characters (that will most likely remain nameless).

 **It makes sense for Love Live Sunshine to be five years after the original Love Live, but since I'm already so far into this story, I have to leave their age difference as one year apart. I hope that this works for everyone reading.**

 **Without further ado, here is part 2 of their survival game!**

* * *

Rin poked her head out from behind the broken wall, glancing around. Hanamaru sat next to her, trusting Rin's decision to hide. "Okay, I don't see anyone. Follow me closely." Rin instructed, looking ahead to the next piece of rubble they could hide behind. Their team hadn't obtained a single talisman but she would prefer to get through the game with both members unhurt. She got a nod of confirmation from her teammate. The two girls broke cover, making a sprint to the next piece of rubble.

Bullets rained down on them the moment they ran out from behind the wall. But whoever was shooting at them didn't have good aim; Rin and Hanamaru dove behind their next shelter without getting hit once. Silence fell on the area as whoever it was stopped shooting. Rin peered over the top of the rubble. "D-Do you see who it is?" Hanamaru asked. The girl was frightened; they had been progressing very slowly since another team was targeting them each time they stepped out from behind their shelter.

"No, my vision isn't good enough. Plus, they're higher up, and the sun is to their backs when they aim at us nya." Rin sat down next to Hanamaru, sighing loudly. "Still, we can't move that much if they're constantly watching us. Let's look at the map and see if there's another way around." The other girl nodded and spreaded out their map on the ground between them.

"We should be here." Hanamaru pointed to their location. "The station we're trying to get to is somewhere in here. Which means…" She risked lifting her head over the edge of the rubble to look around. "There! If we can make it to that building, we should be able to move freely zura!" Rin joined her partner, looking to find the building Hanamaru had indicated.

"That's a good plan nya! Okay, wait for my signal to run!"

"Yes!" Hanamaru folded up their map and watched Rin closely even as the orange-haired girl peered around to find their next shield.

"Ah...we lost them." Kotori lowered her firearm in disappointment. She didn't even know if Rin and Hanamaru had anything, but it didn't matter now that they were hiding in the buildings. "Do you see anything?"

On the other side of the metal bell, You looked down at the streets below her. "Nope! It's all empty!" She still wasn't pleased at what she considered an underhanded play on their part, but if Kotori kept her promise, it would be worth it. You stretched herself out and lied down on the stone, bored with the inactivity.

"Don't slack off! You might miss someone!" Kotori scolded her teammate sharply, checking the two other sides of the bell tower they were using. You grumbled as she sat back up, giving the streets a sweeping glance. Her hand went to her gun as she scrambled to her feet. "What, is there a team?"

"Yeah. I don't know which, but we just have to get them out of the game, right?" She raised her firearm, aiming at the two people below her.

Eri heard the whistle before the first bullet hit the ground at her feet. She glanced quickly to her sides, looking for a hiding spot.

"This way!" Dia grabbed her hand and led her into the remnants of a shop. The bullets followed them right until they hugged the far wall, making themselves as small of targets as they possibly could. Eri heaved a sigh of relief; she hadn't felt any pain so none of the bullets had touched her.

"Where do you think they're shooting from?" She asked. The bullets had come from somewhere above and to the front of them, judging from the angle they had been shot at when they were entering the shop. "Dia? Where are you going?" Her teammate stopped; she had been about to exit the shop, in full view of whoever was shooting them.

"Back to the school. I got shot." Dia showed off her arm, where a small bruise was already forming. "By the rules of the game, I'm out. Sorry, Eri-san."

"We had just gotten a talisman too…" Eri sighed. "I guess you won't want me coming with you?"

"There are two more talismans, no? Please do your best; I'll be hoping for your victory from the school." It almost seemed like this was more than just a game at the moment. Eri watched as Dia walked away from her, feeling a tinge of anger at whoever dared to shoot her partner. Speaking of which, Eri had the map. She wasn't sure if Dia knew the way back.

"Okay, stop right there and hand over your talismans." You pointed her firearm at Dia, though she was well aware that she would never dare shoot her from such a close distance. Her teammate, Kotori, was still on the bell tower. You had the job of going down to retrieve the talisman from their victim.

"I wouldn't even if I had any." Dia stood still, patiently allowing You to check her. "Was this your idea? Hiding up where no one would look and taking out people who walk by?"

"No, it was Kotori-san's. It looks like you don't have anything, so move along." Dia looked like she was about to say something more, but the older girl kept it to herself and walked away. You scratched her head; she wasn't used to speaking to Dia in such a manner without getting a retort. She supposed it was because they were playing a game that nothing bad came out of it, but now she faced a tiring climb back to where Kotori still kept watch.

"Two out of three collected!" Ruby called out, leaving the station to rejoin Hanayo. The brunette acknowledged her with a nod, but she was watching the bell tower. Someone had just climbed up the side of it, which meant that they could possibly be seen and knocked out of the game. "What's wrong?"

"There's something up with that tower. I think we should-" A gun went off; Hanayo glanced around quickly. It sounded close by and she didn't want to get caught off-guard. Next to her, Ruby looked around warily. "Keep low."

"Ye-kyaa!"" Ruby rubbed at her arm, the small bullet rolled to a stop at their feet.

"Found you." One more shot, and both girls were out of the game. "Sorry 'bout this, Hanayo, but I'm not going to run around this place with an injured patient." Maki and Riko walked up, completely at ease at being exposed since the only two that could shoot them were already out.

"Um...hand over your talismans." Riko held out her hand and Ruby unhappily gave her both of the objects they had found.

"I knew we wouldn't win, but I didn't think it'd be to you. Good luck, Maki-chan." Hanayo and Maki high-fived, the sound echoing on the deserted streets. "Let's go, Ruby-chan. We've lost."

"Ah, okay!" As soon as the two girls had rounded the corner back towards the school, Maki and Riko examined the talismans they had just obtained.

"With the one we already got, we have all three, right?" Riko asked, picking each of them up in turn and looking at them closely.

"Yes, and not a moment too late. This is why I didn't want to do this." Maki rested her hand on the other girl's forehead and had to pull away quickly. "Your fever is not going down. You should have listened to me and given up earlier." She rummaged in her backpack and found the medicine and water bottles she had packed for the exact purpose of taking care of Riko.

"But I didn't want to give up when Honoka-san put so much effort into making us welcome…" Riko murmured, accepting the pill. The girl swallowed it with a bit of difficulty, grimacing from the bitter aftertaste it left in her mouth.

"She would have just made something else up." Maki told her. "Rest your head on my lap. We're not moving for a while."

"I'll take you up on that offer then." Riko smiled to herself as she obeyed. "We'll move when my fever goes down a bit?"

"Yes, yes. Now close your eyes. I'll keep watch." Maki looked around at their surroundings, glad that they had ended up at a shady spot for Riko to rest in. She couldn't open her map with Riko lying on her lap, but she knew that were not too far away from the school. Riko's breathing had eased; the girl's body was tired and now she dozed. Maki patted her head, ready for a long wait.

"The station doesn't have anything." Kanan said as she slid back down the hill to where Umi was waiting with the map. "I think this was the one with the three objects."

"Then we may as well continue." Umi outlined their path on the map for Kanan to see. "And do tell me when I'm about to make the wrong turn."

"But it's fun watching you get confused. Don't get mad, Umi-san." She only said this last part since Umi was starting to walk away from her. Kanan followed her; maybe her earlier teasing had been too much for the more serious girl to take. "You want to turn on the next street, not this one."

"See, if you had just been correcting me, then we would have gotten to our destination faster." Umi grumbled, though she obeyed Kanan's instructions and kept going straight.

"Or we could just give up and head back." She suggested; they had been doing nothing but walking around for the majority of their time outside. It was mainly her own fault, since she didn't bother correcting Umi when she made wrong turns and just followed her around instead. "I'm sure some of the other teams have done that."

"Yes, but that would be taking the easy way out. I want to get at least one talisman before we head back." Umi consulted her map again. "I turn here?"

"Yep. And then make a left turn at the next street." The two girls continued in that fashion, walking through the streets.

"We're back." Nico announced, seeing as there were already several people at the meeting point. She and Yohane had nothing to show between the two of them, but both had agreed that walking around was too tiring to continue searching for objects.

"Welcome back, Nico-chan!" Rin greeted cheerfully. "How many talismans did you get nya?"

"Zero. It's below the position of someone such as myself to search in this weather." Yohane proclaimed, posing for the added dramatic effect.

"Hm, well Rin-chan and Maru found one zura!" Hanamaru showed off the one they had found. "But Rin-chan is too nice."

"Not really. Rin was getting tired too!" Nico turned her attention to the other three girls who had returned.

"And what about you three?"

"We found two, but we don't have them anymore." Hanayo said, looking somewhat sheepish.

"Because Maki-san and Riko-chan came and took them from us." Ruby explained, looking just as embarrassed by the fact as Hanayo did.

"I got shot. Eri-san had one when I left her." Dia said, shrugging. "I don't know how much she has now."

"Oh, is everyone coming back already?" Nozomi asked, walking into hearing range with her teammate. "We got two of them, but the last station was empty."

Honoka was quite disappointed in the amount of teams that had just given up. "It's a survival game! Not collecting all the talismans is the same as not surviving!" She stood at the front of the group, lecturing all of them. Except for Maki and Riko, since they had collected all of the things they were supposed to. And because Maki needed to get Riko back to the infirmary.

"But only three teams could survive then." Umi pointed out, seeing as one of the stations had only three talismans.

"That's why it's a survival game. You fight for that one and the one that doesn't get hit survives! But if you don't fight for survival, then what's the point of the game?!" Honoka complained.

"I thought it was to increase the trust between Aqours and Muse." Nozomi replied, getting nods of agreement from most of the other girls.

"Well, that was part of it. But the main thing is survival! Survival! We're doing another round soon, so be ready for it!" Honoka pointed at the group. "Dismissed!"

"Why is she only serious about things like this?" Umi muttered to Kotori as the girls filed into the bunker to get much needed showers, not getting a response. Not that she expecting one, though.

* * *

 **Results of the Survival Game (since it wasn't discussed in the chapter)**

 **Honoka-Chika: Collected none. Honoka knew where they were, and Chika just followed. They got robbed later on.**

 **Umi-Kanan: Collected one. After getting lost, Umi gave up.**

 **Kotori-You: Collected all three. Kotori knocked both Honoka and Chika out of the game. You took their talismans.**

 **Rin-Hanamaru: Collected one. Rin took Hanamaru back since she was getting tired.**

 **Hanayo-Ruby: Collected none. Their talismans were taken by Riko.**

 **Maki-Riko: Collected all three. After resting for a bit, they returned to the bunker without trouble..**

 **Eri-Dia: Collected all three. Eri went all the way after Dia was knocked out.**

 **Nozomi-Mari: Collected two. They were unable to obtain the last one.**

 **Nico-Yohane: Collected none. They gave up.**


End file.
